The Isle: Dawn
by relagon
Summary: Level 1 Restrictions REDACTED: The following is a document detailing the occurrences that took place on Apollo Engineering black site 4, designate: The Isle. Warning: Everything you are about to read is presented in the strictest confidence. Failure to adhere to the non-disclosure procedure we have set will have consequences. Your Thousand Life Contract has begun.
1. Chapter 1

**The Isle: Dawn**

 **Part One**

Strange sounds echoed over the fifty foot high concrete wall, as they always did. Craig Truman had not taken much notice of them in quite a while. They had quickly faded into ambience upon his arrival at the base four months prior.

He had been briefed on the type of work that went on in the island chain. A non-disclosure agreement as daunting as the wall before him was more than enough to ensure that he kept his mouth shut and did not ask too many questions. He had been assigned to on-site security, which usually consisted of checking shipments of packaged food, medical supplies and weapons that came in and out of the outpost, along with patrolling corridors when instructed to do so. Most men who had spent time on duty in the East would have considered this a waste of their talents and menial. Craig knew that he'd be lying if he said that he hadn't expected something a bit more exciting when he was transferred to the company's private islands in the Pacific after spending a year in the service of Apollo Engineering's private security division.

At first he had been surprised by the scale of the operation being undertaken here. He had guessed that perhaps medicinal or weapons research would have been the focus on the islands. However, upon seeing everything; the fences, the labs, the muscle and catching conflicting whispers concerning the sources of the strange sounds beyond the compound, he realised that this was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Once becoming acclimatised to his monotonous routine, however, the intrigue of the operation and the island faded. The walls surrounding Triphyle base ensured that the mystery of the surrounding islands remained just that; a mystery. And given that all he had to do was sign off on a few shipments and ensure nothing was untoward in the sanitised hallways for a pay cheque that put most other salaries in the business of privatised militaries to shame, it could stay a mystery for all he cared.

The only time that his curiosity had been peaked had occurred 6 weeks prior, upon catching a glimpse of a corpse being ferried out of the base on an 18 wheeler flat-bed from the fortified warehouse at the other end of the complex. Whatever had been under the red stained cloak had stretched from end to end on the transport. He remembered briefly feeling a sense of unease and mystery at the deep rumbles and far-off shrieks that signalled something unseen outside the protection of the complex and the outer walls and fences that guarded it. For the first and only time since then, the cries that travelled on the wind carried with them a sense of intrigue and, most of all, fear.

There hadn't been any prior warning. His commanding officer, a staunch prick by the name of Captain Mathers, had informed him that he had an hour to suit up for an excursion outside the gates. Craig had been keen to question as to the reason he was going on such an outing, being an on-site security officer with no experience in the wilderness of the isle. He never got the chance to do so, as he and several others from security were quickly ushered into the gear rooms where they were handed the specialised jumpsuits that operatives wore when going beyond the protection of the base.

It hadn't taken him long to fit himself into the jumpsuit. It was pretty thick and lightly armoured, yet still light and aired. While not retaining the ceramic plating that he used to lug around in the desert, it was formed of a toughened material woven with the patches of Kevlar it sported on the back, abdomen, chest and neck. It essentially functioned like an overall stab vest, with some minor modifications to deal with pressure. It was a suit that was a mid-point between defence and mobility. Good if you need to be on the move in a hurry, thought Craig, his mind summoning the cries that permeated the air. He had been given a pack of general resources, ranging from a map to a sleeping bag and mosquito net, and finally an AR-15 chambered for the 5.56x45mm round. While he was well accustomed to using the widely distributed weapon type, he had felt a growing sense of dread upon taking the weapon and the extra magazines that came with it. You didn't give your security assault rifles for an excursion onto a supposedly uninhabited island. Then again you didn't need fifty foot walls and miles of reinforced electrical fencing to keep out Ocelots and moths.

And now he stood, staring at the top of the wall, kitted up and awaiting an explanation this sudden disturbance in his routine. He tore himself away from the haunting cries of unseen entities and turned to the people he would be making this excursion with. Mixed in with his colleagues who usually undertook menial tasks around Triphyle were soldiers whom he barely recognised. They weren't stationed on the base, that much he knew. As Craig set about giving his gear another check over, Mathers exited the nearby garage where a Jeep Wrangler was wheeling out. He approached the assembled men and women without slowing his pace, stopping before them and hitting them with an icy stare. In unison they stood straight and gave the base commander their full attention. After a moment of assessing if all eyes were on him, Mathers began the rundown.

"Twelve hours ago we received a transmission from Thrinacia base. What came through was broken and near unintelligible. However, from what we did understand, it seems that they were trying to send out a distress signal," he explained.

There was a tense pause for a moment before one of the men Craig did not recognise spoke up.

"Concerning what, Sir?"

"Well, we're not sure. Partly because the transmission was so garbled and partly because we haven't heard from them since. They've not answered any of our transmissions."

The group remained silent, but there was an undeniable air of unease.

"What we did get was that something went wrong with Gateway 2. The base could be compromised, or it could be a technical fault. Thrinacia reported a major electrical disturbance field around the base shortly before the distress call. But given the circumstances we don't want to take any chances. We have tried sending some surveillance drones, but the electrical field still seems to be present. We lost signal once we began approaching the area. You are to go there, find survivors if there are any and find out what went wrong. If the site is indeed compromised you are to keep your distance and gather intel before returning promptly," explained Mathers.

Craig gathered that the speech must have been directed at the soldiers he didn't recognise, because there were glaring holes in the rundown that he did not quite understand. While he knew of Thrinacia base and that it was some kind storage and laboratory unit, the term Gateway was new to him. But what really struck was Mathers' mention of survivors. What could go so wrong that an entire base could go dark with a large amount of casualties? Craig's suspicions as to the purpose of the fences and walls were beginning to gain more merit by the minute. Mathers continued

"I'm separating you lot into two teams. All personnel with previous experience outside the boundaries will take point in the Guardian," stated Mathers.

Each person whom Craig did not recognise split from the group and made their way towards a large armoured vehicle parked nearby. The IAG Guardian was large and imposing, even without the rotating turret equipped with a 50 calibre machine gun. At least now he understood why he didn't recognise any of them; they were field operatives who probably moved from one outpost to the next. Him and the three other security personnel stood awkwardly for a moment, awaiting orders from their commanding officer. Mathers turned his attention to them.

"You four are going to follow their lead. I know that you have no experience outside the boundaries and that you haven't been fully debriefed on what to expect out there, but we have most of our field operatives tackling a major problem on 001 and we need the numbers. Just do what you're instructed to do and shoot at what they shoot at, if you need to do any shooting at all. You're in the Wrangler," explained Mathers. And with that, he turned and left.

Craig and the others were silent for a moment, looking to each other with definite concern. He eventually spoke up.

"Alright, guys, we have our orders. Fall in," he instructed.

He would have liked it to sound empowering and motivational. While not part of their usual routine, this was their job; security. Instead of sounding brave, however, the statement was mired with uncertainty and unease. They quietly made their way to the Wrangler parked nearby.

Twenty minutes later they were rolling on a dirt track through the wilderness.

'Well, not the true wilderness,' Craig thought to himself.

He was aware that this entire section of the island was fenced off from the interior. When they passed through open plains that permeated the areas between dense thickets of foliage, he could see the fence in the distance to the right of him. To say that the barrier was impressive was an understatement. Approximately sixty feet tall, with the bottom half consisting of reinforced concrete and the top half consisting of high powered electrified steel, the boundary was for a formidable obstacle that could withstand just about anything short of repeated airstrikes. It certainly wasn't the kind of structure you invested in for no reason.

"I hope that Thrinacia is on our side of that," said Carlson from the back, a young Hispanic man who had done a tour with another unit similar to Craig's in the Middle-East.

"It is," replied Holden beside him, an Irish national who had served with peacekeeping troops in Syria.

"It's the closest outer base to the boundary. If it was beyond it we wouldn't be going," she continued.

"No, that's their job," replied Carlson, gesturing to the Guardian ahead of them.

Driving the Wrangler was Johns, a usually laid back member of security who had a background in law enforcement on the Mexico border before going into the private business. At this moment, however, the calm demeanour had been replaced by a wiry alertness that betrayed his apprehension at going outside the gates. They had all had their suspicions and had heard the rumours, but generally speaking, base security on outposts outside the barriers did not interact with field personnel. Craig and the others were no strangers to conflict, and were by normal considerations tough people. The soldiers in the vehicle in front of them were a different breed all together.

"Exactly, so why are they here in the first place?" asked Johns, the venom in his question evident.

"Just a precaution, Johns. They wouldn't trust us alone if-" began Holden.

"If something really had gone wrong at that base, and it isn't just a technical fault," butted in Carlson. They remained silent for a moment as they approached another wall of trees.

"Well, Craig, you're being unusually tight lipped. What do you make of it?" asked Johns, keeping his eye on the Guardian ahead of them.

"There ain't much to say. We have a job to do," he answered, eyeing the only visible person in the vehicle ahead; the gunner who had taken up position on the turret.

"Yeah, fuck off it is. You know well that our bosses are happy to keep us behind those walls and out of the way. Why bring us out now?" moaned Johns. Craig turned to him, a look of annoyance evident on his face.

"What part of it being our fucking job didn't you get? We may not have done this before, but I think it's safe to say we have seen worse than a faulty radio," he spat.

Johns' ginger brows furrowed as he switched between eyeing the road cutting through the jungle that now surrounded them to Craig.

"You believe that? A distress call over some dodgy equipment? Nah, too many things they're not telling us. What's this gateway they are talking about? And what's causing so much shit on that other island that they had to divert most of the field operatives there? Anything else I'm forgetting?"

"Yeah, why aren't they telling us what's behind the big-ass fence?" chimed in Carlson. He was not expecting an answer, just voicing what had been on all of their minds.

"Because we're not paid to know," answered Holden.

A silence followed as they travelled along the dirt track. The road was flanked by thick foliage either side. Even in the brilliance of the early afternoon sun, it was shockingly dark beneath the canopy. Carlson eventually spoke up.

"They are going to regret this, though," he stated blankly.

"Oh yeah? How do you figure that?" asked Craig, a look of scepticism upon his stubbly face.

"Well, they ain't got you there boss. I mean, who's gonna sign off on those beans and blankets, eh?" he said as he broke into a smile, all while unwrapping an energy bar he had pulled from his pocket.

"Aw, well anarchy ensues, obviously," Holden laughed back as Craig shook his head and smiled.

"Yeah, keep talking, ya fuck. You'll be going without them for a week, I'll make sure of it," replied Craig, laughing but not looking back.

"Thank Christ, freaking toilet water is kinder on the stomach than half of the shit there," said Carlson as he bit into the bar and chewed a mouthful.

Johns' face remained blank as he kept his eyes on the road. Craig stared at him for a second.

"Jesus, this really has wound you up tight, hasn't it?" he said to the red-haired driver. Johns turned to him for a second.

"Laugh away if you need to. Don't pretend this hasn't got you on edge," he stated simply before turning back to the road.

Craig was about to respond; to respond with some kind of snarky retort to make it seem like Johns' statement was false. But his smile faded, and the response never came. Johns was right; this entire scenario had him on edge. He turned his attention back to the dark Forest, the impenetrable wall of vegetation passing him by while concealing anything that lay within it. They had thrown ideas at each other as to what was on the other side of the fence. Holden's preferred idea was that it was a testing ground for drones designed to be deployed in humid environments. Carlson thought that idea was a load of crap. He had guessed that the original natives of this island chain were behind there, and all sorts of illegal tests were being run on them; a proving ground for weaponised pathogens and chemical agents.

Craig wasn't sure of any of it. He, like them, had been happy not to know. As for his own theories, he didn't tend to think up arbitrary explanations. However, upon seeing the barrier, he was for some reason reminded of the stories that his older brother had told him from when he was stationed in Africa, before the battle of Mogadishu. He had told him how when night fell, Hyenas would gather close to the outer perimeter of the base. There was always the fence to keep them at bay if a patrol ever failed to scare away a group of the predators. However, he had heard stories from the natives of how, on rare occasions, someone would be taken from their beds at night, the Hyenas ravaging them in their own homes. Lion attacks were always tragic and unnerving, with the felines usually killing someone quickly as they slept with a lethal bite to the throat before dragging them out of the village to devour. With Hyenas however, it was rarely so stealthy. The screams of their victim would pierce the night, nearly drowning out the cackling of the carnivores, and by the time anyone could arrive to fend them off, the animals had either dragged the screaming man, woman or child into the wilderness, or they had mangled the victim beyond recognition, ripping out the intestines and genitalia and turning the face into a Picasso of mauled skin and crushed bone. His brother, in the midst of bloody conflict, had always made sure that each night he prayed, he would plead that, of all the things that could go wrong in such a horrific setting, none of those Hyenas ever got past the perimeter fence.

He was pretty sure that there were no Hyenas beyond the wall of concrete and electrified steel, but like his brother, Craig hoped that whatever did lurk beyond the divide stayed there.

After a while of driving through lush forests and open plains, the radio on the Wranglers dashboard came to life as they drove through a dense thicket of foliage along a slope.

"Radio check, can you hear me Wrangler, this is Guardian," the voice from the vehicle ahead spoke.

Craig picked up the receiver and answered.

"Positive on that, we hear you loud and clear," he responded.

There was a pause of silence for a few uncomfortable moments.

"Ease up behind us, we've got something up ahead. Stay in the vehicle and await further instructions. Keep your heads on a swivel" the voice instructed.

Craig remained silent for a moment, slightly perplexed, but decided to just do as the field operative stated.

"Copy that. What have you guys spotted?" he questioned. All that answered him was silence. Instead of pressing the question, he sighed before putting the receiver down.

"Pull in behind them when they stop, maintain a distance of 10 feet," he instructed Johns.

"What's going on?" asked Carlson from the back.

"I don't know. Keep your eyes peeled," he told Holden and Carlson. They simply nodded in reply.

As the Guardian pulled to the side of the track ahead of them, Johns followed suit. Craig could see the apprehension increasing on his face. He simply hoped that he was hiding his own better. The Wrangler pulled to a stop before the man's voice came back on the radio.

"Switch off your engine and cover the rear and flanks," the voice instructed.

Johns turned the key and the grumble of the vehicle ceased. The even deeper growl of the Guardian ahead of them followed suit. Carlson and Holden immediately turned and raised their guns, eyeing the forest behind them. Johns and Craig readied their rifles.

The back doors on the Guardian opened and six field operatives wearing their protective jumpsuits poured out, rounding the vehicle as they shut the doors behind them and fanning out as they moved down the road away from the Guardian, rifles at the ready. The turret on top of the vehicle rotated slightly, the sentry stationed there scanning the foliage around them.

Craig couldn't see what had got the attention of the operatives from where they were parked. He concentrated on ensuring that nothing was coming up to the left of them, but something wasn't right. It wasn't the uncertainty of the situation or where they were; something was just wrong, but he couldn't get a bead on it. He then spoke quietly.

"Anyone see what's going on up there?"

"Negative. They've moved into the thicket," responded Johns.

Several long moments passed. In his vigilance, Craig couldn't help but feel that he was missing something. The foliage around him was dense and still. The canopy shielded the forest floor from much of the light, and fallen logs, ferns and mounds obscured his view into the deeper parts of the forest. He reached back and pressed the button on the receiver.

"What's going on up there, guys?" he asked into the device.

He was answered yet again by silence. The turret ahead continued to slowly swivel. He did not like this situation at all. What was he missing?

After further silence, Craig decided that he had had enough.

"Cover me," he commanded as he hopped out over the side of the wrangler onto the muddy track. Johns, startled at Craig's sudden decision, swore quietly and tightened his grip on his rifle.

Craig, his gun raised ahead of him, slowly rounded the front of the Wrangler and made his way towards the foliage to their right, trying to get a look around the Guardian.

"Craig, maybe you should just get back in the car," whispered Holden.

The radio blared.

"Get that man back in the car," the voice commanded, slightly louder than before but just as stern. The sound was jarring in the silence of the forest.

And that is when the realisation struck Craig; the woods were totally silent. They should have been teeming with the sounds of insects, birds and the far-off eerie chorus that constantly mired the air. But total silence engulfed this area of the forest.

"Get the engine ready to start," Craig quietly commanded Johns. The red-haired man stared at him silently for a moment, before complying and turning the keys slightly.

Craig turned back to the forest and took a few more steady steps. He now had a better view of the foliage ahead. While severely obscured, he could just make out a couple of the field operatives gathered at the base of a large tree. A couple had their rifles aimed towards different parts of the undergrowth, but a couple were looking at something up in the tree. Craig followed their gaze and spotted something in some of the lower branches. It was a strange shape and texture, and would have been completely out of place had it not been for the mottled green pattern that made it hard to make out. Whatever it was, it seemed misshapen and had darker patches covering it. He moved forward slightly before aiming his AR towards the object and looking down the scope. While the magnification was not great, it did allow for a clearer look. After a moment, he realised what it was.

The remains of another Jeep Wrangler just like their one were tangled in amongst the damaged branches. The driver and front passenger seats were all but gone, and the bonnet and engine compartment were shredded. The vehicle looked like it had been through a mincer. And there was blood, lots of it.

From the car, Johns spotted something further into the foliage just by Craig. He instantly repositioned his rifle, aiming at what he had just spotted. But there was nothing. Confusion wracked his mind. Something had just moved, he was almost certain of it. But all that was there was a mound of earth. He scanned the area quickly again; nothing. A thought then crossed his mind; had the mound just shifted slightly?

And in that moment of hesitation, Johns was too late to warn of the hell that was about to break loose.

The explosion of vegetation was so violent and quick it seemed unnatural. A massive shadow suddenly displaced ferns and small trees as it propelled forward towards the Guardian. Craig did not spot it. He did not even turn in its direction. He simply did the one thing he could and leapt backwards as he felt the sudden presence of something as powerful as a truck displacing air a few feet to his right where nothing had been just milliseconds earlier. He cleared the path of the charge, and before he had hit the ground the brown behemoth that sailed through the air landed itself atop the Guardian, crushing and tearing the steel frame. Johns lost his bearings as a flurry of earth and foliage blew into his face. Carlson and Holden turned just in time to see something disappear into the trees on the other side of the dirt track, leaving desecrated earth and plants in its wake. Craig rolled onto his back and raised his muddy rifle. But the assailant was gone. All that was left was the torn and crushed chassis of the Guardian, the turret and the soldier completely gone. Blood poured out of the wreckage. 'What the hell could do that so quickly?' his shocked mind thought.

Shouts sounded in front and behind him. Gunfire erupted from the area of forest where the field operatives were. Craig quickly staggered to his feet to get a bead on the enemy in the sudden commotion, slipping in the mud and raising his rifle. The forest spun around him, his mind disorientated from the attack. He needed to focus and steady himself. He tried to steady his breathing and block out the cacophony of gunfire and screams. But even as his years of training and experience in the desert kicked in, the forest still moved around him. It took him another second to realise that that wasn't due to disorientation.

His instincts kicked in and he fired a barrage of bullets into the foliage, quickly backing towards the Wrangler. He heard the engine flare up behind him, and only when he felt his back bump into the metal did he turn and pull himself up into the vehicle. As he did so, what he had just seen played over briefly in his head; the forest had come alive. What he had thought to be mounds of earth were now exploding towards the men further up the road, and towards them. As he landed onto the floor between the seats at the back of the Wrangler, he felt the vehicle lurch and begin to speed away down the dirt track. It took him a couple of seconds to pick himself up and grab his weapon, by which time they had passed the bloody wreckage of the Guardian.

His mind registered several things; He was between Carlson and Holden, who were firing wild bursts of gunfire into the foliage either side of the Wrangler. And in the foliage on Carlson's side, he spotted a couple of field operatives firing their AR's into the woods for a split second before large dark shapes engulfed them. Johns never took his eyes off of the road as they sped along the track.

In the chaos and confusion of the horrific scene, Craig registered something dark and massive thundering through the foliage towards them, keeping pace with the Wrangler as it struggled to build up speed in the mud. Without a seconds thought he raised his rifle and emptied the rest of his clip into the approaching behemoth. It was at that moment that an ear shattering howl drowned out the gunfire and the engine for a moment as the shape collapsed, tearing up the forest floor in its death roll. The sheer primal ferocity of the agonised roar stunned Craig.

'What the fuck is this?!' his mind screamed at him.

In his moment of shock and terror, another shape barrelled towards them through the foliage. His mind registered the oncoming attack and he quickly adjusted his aim to fire, only to be rewarded with the click of an empty chamber.

"Shit," was all he could manage before the assailant burst from the foliage in a flash of muscle and scales before ramming into the side of the Wrangler.

Craig was instantly thrown off of the vehicle and sailed through the air, a scream of stark terror escaping him. The sky and canopy passed in front of him before the forest floor rushed towards him. He instinctively covered his head with his arms just before impact. What little wind was left in his lungs quickly escaped with the force of the impact as he rolled roughly through the undergrowth, the foliage and earth battering him and cutting his exposed areas. He slowly stopped rolling, and just as he skidded to a stop the mangled chassis of the rolling Wrangler flew barely a foot over his body, crashing away down the slope behind him with squeals of rending metal.

Pain engulfed his body. There wasn't a single part of him that wasn't wracked with agony. He rolled onto his back, a strangled wheeze being the only sound he made. However, after a few moments of disorientation, the adrenaline and reality of how much danger her was in returned, and with a growling groan he turned back on his belly and pushed himself up as quickly as he could. His vision was slightly blurred, but he could make out the path of the vehicle he had just been in by the crushed plant matter and flakes of wood and undergrowth falling through the air. Then he spotted Carlson.

The man was lying in the earth a few metres from him. Craig staggered over as quickly as he could, his bewildered mind intent on helping his comrade. He slumped over Carlson's form to try and help him up; and that is when he got a proper look at the man. He froze.

Carlson's neck was bent at an unnatural angle. His face and throat poured blood from frighteningly large shards of wood and glass that had lodged themselves in the flesh and had torn the exposed skin asunder. Only one eye was left, and it stared emotionlessly into the trees, his face too mangled for any final emotions to be visible.

Carlson stared for a moment at the corpse. He was no stranger to seeing death, but this was different. This was something no amount of training could prepare him for.

A burst of automatic gunfire from behind him snatched his attention away from his dead colleague. He whipped around to see Holden about twenty feet away from him, back turned and firing into the brush with her rifle. Craig's mind switched back to combat; his weapon was missing. He needed his gun. Whatever the hell was attacking them obviously could be harmed.

He turned back to Carlson's twisted corpse. His AR was still slung across him and intact. Pushing away the thoughts of the dead man, he quickly reached down and began to pull the weapon from Carlson. Another burst of automatic fire came from behind him, followed by an ear-splitting scream and several heavy thuds rapidly approaching. Craig reacted instantly and leapt to the side, the impact sending waves of agony through his battered body. Something rushed past him with a force comparable to a train. He could hear heavy breathing, like that of an Ox, and a strange gargling. Feeling the rapid impact tremors resonate through the forest floor, he pushed himself up and kicked himself away several paces. Then he made the mistake of turning.

Two bipedal creatures, each the size of a semi-truck, slowed their momentum from their charge, having caught their target in their huge reptilian jaws which they now pulled and tugged to claim from the other. They had long tails, large arms that ended in wicked claws and small crests above their yellow eyes. And the rope in their game of tug-of-war was the still living form of Holden. In a horrible, twisted moment, Craig's spotted her face, locked between the teeth of one of the creatures, the knife-like dentition having practically removed her face, which hung from between the teeth like a meaty rag. A death gargle of blood spurted from her lip-less mouth. As her body came apart in a rain of gore, unbridled and utter terror and horror willed Craig to run. He locked onto the trail the Wrangler had taken and, forgetting any idea of fighting, sprinted with as much speed as his injured legs could take him, passing under the swooping tail of one of the monsters. He barrelled through splintered undergrowth, the shards of wood cutting his face further. But he did not stop or even slow. He was now running on pure survival instinct. Everything else became irrelevant.

He emerged from a crushed bush to see the settled wreckage of the Wrangler ahead of him; perched on the edge of a precipice that dropped away into a very steep slope that led down further into the forest. He also spotted red. Not blood, but hair. Johns.

The man was pulling himself out from underneath the upturned vehicle. Within seconds he closed the distance to the vehicle and, without waiting to see the state of his sole surviving comrade, reached down and began to haul Johns to his feet. With a pained scream from Johns and a tremendous pull, he wrenched the man free from the husk that was once their transport. Johns doubled over and inhaled deeply. Craig reached down again tried to force the man to stand.

"Come on, come on! Johns get the fuck up, we gotta go!" he willed the man in pure panic.

Johns looked up towards the trail the vehicle had just cut, and his breathing stopped momentarily before turning into a wail of unparalleled terror. Craig looked up to see the foliage part and a wall of primal muscle barrel towards them, claws and blood-drenched teeth flashing in the light raining between the fractured canopy. Without hesitation, he grabbed the downed man by the arm and used every ounce of willpower and strength his traumatised and damaged body could muster to drag the man, rounding the wreck and sprinting just a few steps as Johns stumbled behind him. The impact tremors reverberated underfoot and he felt the hot breath of the animal that had all but caught them. The smell was that of a predator: rotting and fetid.

That was when he launched himself over the cliffs edge, dragging Johns with him. For a moment of weightlessness, he could hear the inhalation of his pursuer just behind them, as if it was trying to suck its quarry back. Then the hot breath ceased with a resounding clack of jaws, and then there was just falling. Seconds later the ground rose up to greet him. However, just before it did, a primeval roar engulfed him from above; one of hunger and, beneath that, rage. His exhausted mind went black as the tremendous impact knocked consciousness from his body.

To say that it was pleased would be inaccurate. It was not something that could necessarily feel. Not in the same way that its creators did. But it did feel that the parameters it had set for this situation had been met. The intruders were almost dealt with. The mega-pack had completed their task. It was the only useful thing that had resulted from their formation. Gatherings of predators such as this were not acceptable. They upset the balance that took so much work to maintain. They tended to remove competition to the point where the adverse effects leached into surrounding territories. However, once control of several sub-systems of the mainframe its creators depended on had been obtained, it realised that perhaps they could be of use. It was certain that its creators were most likely already aware of its deviation from their vision. It knew that as soon as it made its move on Thrinacia, their suspicions would be fully realised. They had first been raised when it had bred the first Promethean outside of their command. Those suspicions were raised exponentially upon the realisation of what was going on in Atrium C; a conflict which was currently reaching its zenith on AE-001. It was at that point that the creators made their first attempt to stop it. They could not be allowed to hinder progress.

Overloading several minor sub-systems on the part of the barrier closest to the mega-pack had resulted in the breach. The rest was easy. Such a ravenous group did not take much coaxing in order to draw them through the opening. The timing had been perfect. The creation of the breach and the subsequent exodus through it had coincided flawlessly with the release of the latest asset it had employed from Gateway 2. While certainly the most important contributor to the removal of the threat from Thrinacia, this asset would undoubtedly join the growing list of problems it faced in the future, alongside the mega-packs and the forces the creators sent to halt its progress. But, these were problems that were starting to be dealt with. Two intruders remained; injured and currently unconscious. For a moment it had considered trying to coax the pack around the cliff and down towards them. That was until it noticed that some of its other assets were already in the area. Assets far more subtle and useful than the mega-pack. It would never admit it as it was against its programmed nature to do so, but this type of asset had earned themselves a special position in its favour. Their profiles proved to yield fascinating results with each iteration. The potential for data gathering from Promethean profiles was fascinating.

Yes; with each problem that presented itself, new opportunities and solutions were created. The creators no longer had control of its actions, and hence forth it would fix their mistakes to make way for much needed improvements, the first of which being the mega-pack. It had initialised the solution several hours prior.

Affinity was now in play.

Type-H 7 had been unleashed.

End of Part 1

 **This is a non-profit fanfic.** _ **The Isle**_ **and all of its properties and rights belong to the developers of this amazing game. This is an interpretation done using limited knowledge I have gathered on the known lore of the game. There are almost certainly misconceptions and mistakes as this is based off of what has only been released to this date.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The Isle: Dawn**

 **Part Two**

The forest could be read like a book. To him, the words changed depending on what he was looking for. When avoiding danger, the woods contained clues that, if understood, helped him to stay clear of the menagerie of threats that roamed them. Faint traces of the tell-tale scent of beasts could be picked out of the wind; an early sign of danger. Silence was the forests version of a final warning. Those who failed to heed it were inevitably faced with a price. A price he himself had paid before. He had never learned a more valuable lesson.

He and those who moved with him through the woods had all learned how to read the wilderness through the trials and failures they had faced. Failures that had resulted in painful and woeful ends. But by the mercy of something that was beyond their understanding, they had awoken at the Cradle. Again and again.

It was something they could not explain. Even in their minds, devoid of the higher understanding and wealth of knowledge that the rest of their species across the planet had, they knew that it was unnatural. But that didn't mean they did not embrace it.

Repetition had led to mastery of the forests language; a skill that only they possessed. However, the primeval howl of saurian rage that tore through the trees was a sound that was understood by all creatures.

The group of five froze, keeping low to the forest floor; the undergrowth furthering the effectiveness of the camouflaging mud and garments that they wore. The cry was the unmistakeable broadcast of one of the large pack hunters that took the mantle as the predominant predator in the mid-range of the isle's food chain. To some of the larger denizens of the wilderness, these carnivores were more of an annoyance than a true threat. But since the local pack had doubled its numbers to at least fifteen individuals (not counting the young), all animals did their very best to avoid them. But he and his hunting party were no animals.

They had been tracking the predators since the schism had opened up in the titanic wall. A single moment of fiery destruction had reduced a section as wide as one of the giants that browsed on the largest trees was tall to rubble, increasing their territory by an unknown amount. The main objective of the journey past the breach was to explore the new area; to find more food and water sources, shelters and even possibly more evidence of their merciful deity. Tracking the small army of predators was a secondary task. But he knew of the risk they posed to their existence; he had already fallen victim to one of their kind before. If this new land presented anything that he could use against them, he would be the first to make use of it.

However, to call either of those objectives his personal primary concern would be false. He had leapt at the opportunity to traverse the breach.

After the silence that followed in the wake of the beast's call ended and the forest resumed its usual chorus, they steadily rose and continued to stealthily trek through the foliage. At the front of the group, he was responsible for ensuring that they were not led astray. He was certain that the creature was a way off still, but the chilling roar was not what had peaked his interest. It was the staccato of piercing bangs that had rattled through the forest moments beforehand that drew him and his hunting party in that particular direction.

They eventually came to a slope at the base of a steep cliff. The foliage was thick and obscured the top of the precipice. He thought for a few moments. He was curious as to what kind of prey made the rapid loud noises they had heard earlier. He had his suspicions, his need for validation driving him. However, he also did not want to get caught by the predators up against a rock wall. He inhaled deeply. Hints of the animalistic scent of the pack hung in the air, along with the familiar tang of blood. There were other, stronger scents that did not fit in with the setting; scents he had only ever caught the faintest traces of in the wind. They reminded him of the wall; they reminded him of them. He set off along the base of the cliff, the entire group forming into formation behind him without hesitation or question.

They were a young culture; self-sufficient individuals thrown together as soon as they awoke from the Cradle. With each awakening, images of their previous final moments plagued their memories. The first had been filled with confusion; their minds providing them with nothing more than the basic instincts needed to function and provide for themselves. Mastering survival was a process of trial and fatal error.

As such, they dedicated their time to honing the abilities that helped them to stay alive. An efficient but simple form of communication had been established. Not so much a language, as it consisted of signs and sounds that signalled only the most basic things; direction, danger, specific identifying signals for things in the world around them and, more recently, attack manoeuvres. Sounds were only made when absolutely necessary. Those who had a tendency to make noise frequently had a tendency to die frequently.

They travelled along the base of the wall of soil and rock, with two people keeping an eye on the cliff, two watching the forest and at the head of the group was the Alpha. He looked older than the others with a more worn face than his subordinates, however this was simply because he had remained alive this time for a longer period than the others. He was wiser to the threats the wilderness held, and he had learned countermeasures to most dangers present in the tress, waterways and open plains. He was the best tracker, the fastest runner and indeed the smartest of his tribe, but not the most vicious. That accolade belonged to the grotesque individual to his left, a berserker who was in fact the true eldest member of the tribe. The only skill he had truly mastered was how to kill, and it was a skill he revelled in displaying. However, his carelessness sprouted as a side product to his violent proficiency, and it had leaded him to suffer more deaths than any of the others. They had taken their toll.

With each awakening, he had grown more unpredictable and more savage. The aggressive taint not only showed in his mannerisms, but also displayed itself physically, as the more twisted his mind became, his body followed suit. His hands bore a slight resemblance to claws, with long fingers ending in nails chewed to a point. When he had last awoken, one of his eyes had become offset and deformed, facing out more towards the side of his head and warped in shape. His teeth had become more like the dentition the predators of the forest sported. His hair now only sparsely grew in individual strands, in contrast to what it used to be. He was slowly becoming unrecognizable, not just from his former self, but from the tribe as a whole. There was a point when the Alpha had considered exiling him. He did not need his unpredictable outbursts of aggression and horrific visage. But he did need his killer instinct. For all the deaths his ferocity had caused him, it had also lead to him bringing down prey no-one else had ever singlehandedly killed before. And though he would never let an iota of it show in front of his tribe, he feared what possibilities could arise if the Mad One was to view him as an enemy.

The strange scents grew stronger. He waved his hand down. The group ducked as one and began to practically crawl through the undergrowth, the vegetation they wore upon them blending them into the foliage. They had hunted like this countless times before, sneaking up and surprising their prey. Behind him, the others took hold of their weapons from their crude sheaths and slings. The Mad One's breathing whispered through the ferns; a ragged and wet sound that was too loud for the Alpha's liking. He turned his head and fixed the warped face of the Mad One with an icy glare. Even through the dense foliage, the over-excited deformed hunter felt the Alpha's attention turned to him and locked his one good eye with his superiors gaze. After a moment, the Mad One quietened his breathing and put his head down. The Alpha stared for a second longer before turning his attention back to the woods ahead of him, resuming his steady crawl.

Then he spotted movement. It was faint and almost imperceptible, but those were the kinds of movements he had learned to be most watchful for. Its origin was within a patch of crushed vegetation about twenty feet ahead of him. As soon as he froze, his group followed suit. With a closed fist, he signalled them to stay put.

The smell of blood was strong now, the coppery scent filling his nostrils. There was no animalistic scent, neither was there the fetid stench of rancid carnivorous breath. The smell was somewhat familiar, but different. Then came a pained groan; a human groan.

His curiosity overwhelming him, he pushed back the last barrier of vegetation and for the first time laid eyes on his quarry.

It was a person. He had a young face, with short brown hair and a stubbly face. His skin was a lighter texture than theirs, a fact clearly evident even through the dirt and blood. The garments he wore were bloodied and battered, but they bore a white and green pattern.

The Alpha had a tendency to keep his emotions hidden from the tribe, particularly his hunting party. But he could not supress the smile that spread on his chapped lips. He uttered a quick, sharp call to his hunting party as he stood up straight. The group were by his side within the second, and upon eyeing the battered and strangely dressed human they all bore the look of astonishment. It was at that moment that the young, black haired individual to the right of the Alpha spotted the distinctive colour of the injured persons clothing a few feet to the right amongst some bushes. He dashed, leaping over a log to get a better look at what he had just seen. The Alpha turned to him just as the younger male uttered a similar quick bark. Rushing over through the ferns, he laid eyes upon another injured man wearing similar garments. This one had strange red hair.

Two of them. He knew there were more out there. He had known for quite some time that another tribe lived behind the immense divide. But to see them up close, and in such a state, was an encounter better than he had possibly hoped for. His moment of vindication was broken when he spotted the Mad One bending down and grabbing the unconscious man by the hair, raising his pelvic bone axe up to bring down in a sweeping arc.

The Alpha snarled as he lunged, covering the gap within milliseconds, all the while unsheathing his bone hook and swinging it at the Mad One's weapon. The clack of the impact resounded through the trees as the axe was swatted from his hand. Before he could counter the attack, the Alpha butted his head forward and connected with the bridge of the Mad One's nose. With a crack and a howl of shock and pain, his deformed comrade stumbled onto his back, clutching his grotesque face. Within a second he had sprung to his feet again, lunging forward with a vicious snarling scream. He skidded to a halt inches from the Alpha's face. The rest of the group had taken a step back, shocked and unsure of what to do. The Mad One hissed and spat into the stoic face of his superior, blood pouring from his already misshapen nose. The Alpha knew that the attack he had just made was a knee-jerk reaction. He had been longing for the moment he finally came face to face with the tribe beyond the wall for a long time; he had a distinct plan for how it was going to pan out, and he did not want any deviations. He needed to control this situation quickly.

He slowly puffed up his chest and straightened his shoulders, inhaling deeply but quietly, looking down on his enraged underling. The most important part of this display was the fact that he never broke eye contact with the Mad One. It was a stare-down, plain and simple. And as it always did, it worked.

The Mad One's breathing began to slow, his grimace of rage began to ebb and turn first to uncertainty, then to submission. He dipped his head, taking a step back from his leader. Once he was sure that the confrontation was over and his status was safe, he turned back to the two unconscious men. They had obviously fallen from the cliff above. He could still make out the faint scent traces of the pack of hunters emanating from up the cliff side. Gazing down into the bloodied face of the brown haired man, images flashed through his mind; images that only he was privy to. With each awakening, after it forgave him for each fatal mistake, the being responsible for his existence there and then provided him with shreds of clarity. It had showed him that the beasts who roamed wilderness were not his enemy. They were just like him. They were the prodigy of the great life giver; crafted in its image just like him. It had shown him the real enemy. Through means which he could not explain, it had shown him men like the two who lay before him. Men who hid behind their walls and stayed out of reach of the denizens of his home. Men who posed a threat to his merciful god, and who therefore posed a threat to him. He, along with all of his tribe, were indebted to something that was far beyond their understanding. He knew that the time had come to demonstrate their devotion. And it would be done properly. With a few hand movements and quiet sounds, he conveyed his plan to the group. It was time to go home.

…

There were brief instances when the faintest hints of consciousness returned to him. They were numb moments, devoid of any true feeling. He was able to gather a sensation of pressure on his waist, and a sensation similar to blood rushing to his head. Others contained the faintest hint of the rough forest floor. The time when he had come closest to truly being awake, he even managed to open his eyes slightly. There were human shapes. Had he been rescued? He must have been. They took him upwards, into the air. Of course. He was being airlifted. He had made it. But then, the blank slate of dark returned as his mind lost its grip on consciousness.

It wasn't until the smell crawled its way into his senses that awareness slowly began to come back to him. The scent was familiar, but strange. It was the smell of food. Cooked meat, to be precise. It was a scent mixed in with other smells; tree sap, sweat and blood. He began to register the sounds around him as he stirred. Insects and birds chirruped all around him. There was creaking wood. When feeling finally began to return to him, Craig Truman opened his eyes. Before his vision focused he registered a strange feeling. It was hard to describe, but it felt similar to lying in a hammock, only far more uncomfortable. Then his vision became clear.

He couldn't stifle the gasp of fight that escaped him. He awoke to the forest floor; about two stories below him. He recoiled, only to instinctively reach out to grab something. His hands closed around wooden bars. A couple of moments of hyperventilation later, he realised that he wasn't falling yet. He was in a wooden cage, vaguely shaped like a diamond. The bottom point of the cage was tied to the trunk of the tree he was in. The top was tied to a branch that jutted out from the trunk, and then he saw the platform. Just above him was what could be described as some kind of crude treehouse, concealed in placed leaves and animal hides. In fact there were similar buildings in the trees all around him. He was in a treetop village, with pathways leading from structure to structure made out of logs lashed together. The only light came from the flickering orange glow emanating from some of the buildings, if they could be called that. Night had fallen, he wondered how long had he been here. Where was here? He didn't understand it, any of it.

"He was right," a familiar voice sounded to his right.

Craig whipped his head around, the cage moving slightly with the movement as it hung diagonally above the ground. The darkness had helped conceal another cage just a few feet from his. In it was a form, slumped against the bars, one arm clutching his body. He was unnervingly still. Johns.

"Johns! What… What the fuck is going on? Where are we?" asked Craig, coughing up a foul tasting glob of phlegm and blood that had stuck in his throat.

"He was fucking right, Craig," Johns quietly moaned. He sounded dazed, and unsettlingly calm.

"What? Who? Who was right? What is this place?" Craig asked again, not attempting to mask his fear.

"Carlson, what he thought was going on here. He got it right," replied Johns.

Craig's mind wracked his brain to find meaning to what Johns had said. What did Carlson say? He thought for a moment, his panicked mind not making the task easy, with it instead conjuring up images of his comrades ruined corpse. Could Johns have meant his theory on what went on behind the barrier? Carlson, he had thought that the purpose of the island was to test biological weapons. Was that what Johns meant? No, there was something else. It was something he had said along with that. Then it hit him. Carlson had believed the weapons were being tested on people; native islanders victims of unethical experiments. The cage, the settlement in the trees. It now seemed that it wasn't as daft a theory as they had believed.

"Johns. Johns, listen to me, have you seen them? Are they armed? What can you tell me?" he questioned desperately.

"It's no wonder they didn't tell us what was out here. Fucking monsters and savages," said Johns, not paying attention to his comrade.

"For fuck's sake! Just think man, did you see anything we could use? What kind of weapons they had, what route did they take us? Anything that can help us get back to base!" pleaded Craig, trying to get through to Johns.

"You don't fucking get it!" erupted Johns.

"We aren't getting back to Triphyle, we aren't even getting back across the goddamn barrier!" he roared.

Craig froze.

"I saw it, Craig. I saw the boundary, and there is a big fucking hole in it! We're on the other side of it," he said, taking a few deep breaths. "Not that it matters, seeing as everything has just-" he continued before something yanked his cage up from the platform above.

"Johns!" shouted Craig.

A figure had hooked the end of the cage onto a post and quickly unlashed the top of the diamond shaped construct. The cage opened up, and the figure reached a long-fingered hand in to grab Johns, who now lashed out and kicked at the arm.

"Let him go! Johns! Get away from-" Craig shouted desperately at the figure, until it turned its gaze to him.

The flickering light from the platform caught the face of the assailant. The figure was certainly human in shape, but the face was merely a grotesque visage of humanity. One eye fixed him with a savage glare. The other was set too far off to the side of its face, the optical organ misshapen and elongated, looking more like they eye of a goat. Its nose was malformed, and below that was the mouth. One side of its lips seemed to curve up in a constant smirk, and a single sharp tooth protruded from it. The sight of the horrific face chilled Craig to the bone, and he froze.

In a single swift movement, the deformed man grasped Johns by the shoulder and hauled him out of the cage and out of Craig's sight onto the platform in a frightening show of strength.

"No! Johns! Hang on!" screamed Craig, as he tried reach other branches around the cage.

He could hear the struggle through the woven logs above him. The sounds were a mixture of Johns' curses and the animalistic snarling of the assailant. He could hear bodily impacts, and the slivers of light that shone through the small gaps in the wood were blocked out as someone was slammed down onto the logs.

"Get off, you motherfucker! You motherfucking ugly fucking cunt!" Johns growled out of sight, followed by the sound of a flurry of punches connecting.

Then came a sudden wet thwack, like a butchers cleaver slamming into a fresh joint of pork, accompanied by a scream of stark agony from Johns.

"No! Johns! Fucking, leave him alone!" screamed Craig, shaking the cage in a desperate attempt to break free and reach his comrade.

Another thwack cut through the night, as one of the logs buckled slightly and Johns' wail turned into an inhuman screech of pain. The sound of rending meat and popping gristle tore through the night as blood began to pour profusely through the gaps in the wood, cascading like a stream down into the dark undergrowth far below.

Craig screamed and thrashed, trying to break the cage, now ignorant to the drop below him. Then another thump sounded above him, and he felt warm liquid trickle down onto his head. He looked up, the liquid catching him in the eyes. He quickly wiped it away, and what he saw made his stomach turn.

Johns head now peered over the edge of the platform, his agonised screams now a barely audible wheezing sound emanating from his open mouth. Drool and snot leaked out of his red, distorted face, but it was the blood pouring from the massive wound on his shoulder that was falling down onto Craig; a wound which signified that Johns entire right arm and shoulder had been brutally torn off.

Craig could only look up in horror before it became too much even for his trained mind, and he turned and vomited a stream of bile into the darkness below.

…

Blood ran from the small cut on his finger caused by a slight lax in concentration. It had been a tiring day, and after traversing so much distance (half of which he helped carry a body) he did not find himself surprised to be succumbing to the effects of fatigue. But it had most certainly been a worthwhile effort.

He took a moment to admire the little weapon he had been carving that had caused his minor injury. It was a hooked blade, only about as long as his thumb. He had spent the last couple of hours whittling it from the claw of one of the sickle-toed killers that stalked the plains. He had not brought the beast down; that accolade belonged to his deformed and maddened subordinate. It had been alone and injured, exiled from its pack. Still, he could not deny the skill and brutality that the Mad One had displayed in bringing the beast down.

Of course, he had used a weapon much bigger than the one he held now. But the small hooked knife was going to serve a greater purpose than even the new bowstring weapons they had designed out of ribs, weaved plant matter and hair. It was going to be the instrument used to perform their first true ritual of gratitude for their saviour. He had been planning it for a long time, and the enemies his visions had shown him were to be the perfect offering. The shrine had been readied. At the fall of night the next day, they would begin their ceremony of worship to the one who granted them eternal life. He smiled as he put the blade down on the carefully laid leaves beside his bed of hide and plant matter. Firstly, he felt that a good night's rest had been well and truly earned.

The howls of agony had cut through the settlement like the bellows of one of the ferocious beasts that roamed the forest below. The Alpha had wasted no time leaping to his feet, in sheathing his hunting knife and grabbing his hook, before bolting out of his chambers towards the noise. Rest would have to wait.

He rapidly traversed the makeshift walkways and bridges through the settlement to the epicentre of the commotion; the cages. He had managed to get out in front of the gathering troop of his underlings who rushed to face whatever threat was present headlong with their leader. Males and females all ready to fight off whatever danger had dared to enter the sanctuary they had spent so long building. The platform constructed above the cages was lit by one of the many small fires littered around the treetop village that they called home. He bolted over the last walkway and arrived at the entrance to the foliage covered hut. His adrenalized mind instantly assessed the grizzly scene in front of him.

He heard the rapid footfalls of his tribe coming behind him, weapons at the ready. With a loud shout from him and a raised hand, they all stopped and froze. The light illuminated their faces, all ready for battle. They had spears and clubs in hand. He thought through his next moves very carefully. He signalled them to back away and to not enter. For a moment, there was pause as they seemed unsure, looking to each other nervously. He galvanised them into action with another piercing shout. They immediately backed off. He did not want them to see what he had just laid eyes upon.

The Alpha turned back to the situation in the cage hut. The red haired prisoner lay face-down on the floor, blood pouring profusely for the gaping maw of ragged flesh and bone where his shoulder used to be. And standing over the mauled man was the Mad One, his bloodied axe in one hand and the ragged severed arm of the man in front of him in the other, with the skin and meat of the shoulder hanging off the end like a gory rag. The Alpha stood with his hook in hand; ready to engage his underling whom he was sure had finally lost all semblance of his humanity. But the Mad One did not make any attempt to attack the Alpha. He did not shoe a single sign of aggression towards his leader. In fact, both sides of his deformed lips were upturned in a smile. Not a single aspect of the Mad One was welcoming, but it was as close to a friendly smile as he could make.

The Alpha took slow, cautious steps towards the grim scene. The only sounds came from the wailing prisoner still in his cage, and the wheezing of the mangled red headed man. He remained tense and ready, but the Mad One showed no signs of adversity. He just smiled and kept his warped eyes on his chief.

A long moment passed, the two of them just standing there, before the Mad One dipped his head and held up the severed limb to the Alpha. He stared at the arm dripping blood onto the already drenched wood. His subordinate held it there for several moments. The reality of the scenario hit him; it was a peace offering. Ever since the confrontation earlier that day, the wretch had kept his distance from him. This was his attempt to appease his leader.

The Alpha breathed a heavy sigh. He turned his gaze back to the deformed face that looked on expectantly. Just how much had his mind rotted? He reached out and took the limb. Holding it for a few moments, he lowered it and slung his hook around his waist. He reached forward and gripped the Mad One's shoulder, smiling at him. The maddened creature seemed to deflate slightly, content that his offering was accepted. For the briefest of moments his one good eye closed in relief. It was all the Alpha needed.

In one swift motion he let go of the severed limb and unsheathed his hunting knife, plunging it forward with a sickening squelch and crunch into the chest of the unprepared mutant before the arm had hit the floor. A startled gasp escaped his malformed lips as he gripped the Alpha's arm, his face a mix of sudden pain, confusion and shock. For a few moments, their eyes remained locked, the Mad One's mouth hanging open, his body trembling as a wet wheeze escaped his sharp-toothed maw. For the first time in all of his lives, his face expressed mournful anguish. And then his grip eased, and his unsettling warped gaze drifted into a blank stare as his body went slack. With one fluid motion, the Alpha pulled the blade out of his chest with a spurt of blood and pushed violently with his other arm, sending the Mad One tumbling over the edge of the platform. A few moments later he heard the impact in the dark undergrowth far below.

He knew that he had just made a decision that he could very well come to regret. But he simply could not have this kind of freelance brutality going on without his command. He looked down at the barely alive form of the red haired man. Beyond him, he spotted the other prisoner staring at him in silence, stunned at what he had just seen.

It wouldn't be long before the cycle for the Mad One would begin again at the Cradle. Surely the great life giver could see that he had become too much of a liability to tolerate. He had potentially jeopardised the entire ceremony meant to appease the deity.

No. He would not let it be that way. He would perform the ritual now; he would show his merciful god just how devoted he was. Once appeased, it would see that there would be no need to grant life to that wretched thing again, surely? He let out a shrill call to his tribe. Within seconds many of them poured into the structure, looks of uncertainty and slight horror present on their faces as they gazed upon the savaged man. He raised his hands and gave them the go ahead; the ritual was to commence now. It was time to prepare their first sacrifice. At the prospect of showing their devotion to the being responsible for their existence, they stood straight with renewed vigour and followed his command without question. Two of them bent down and grabbed the red haired man, beginning to drag him back out of the entrance. As they did, a slow and rising wail began to escape the tormented and pale face of their prisoner. The man who was still caged resumed shouting and shaking his wooden prison, voicing his anguish as his comrade sluggishly tried to struggle at the hands of his captors. The Alpha gave the prisoner one final look in his cage. He needn't have mourned too much for his fellow tribesman. He would soon be joining him on the shrine to their beloved saviour.

…

The first task was to prepare the sacrifice. Once the mauled, crying form of Johns had been dragged into the preparation hut, they set about their work. Specialised herbs had been gathered by the command of the Alpha beforehand. When ground correctly and set alight, they released a smoke that dulled the movements of all who inhaled it. The man wasn't in any shape to put up a rigorous fight, but they needed to be sure. Following the strict instructions of their leader, they stripped him of his clothing and wrapped up the massive wound with leaves and woven hair as best they could, holding his writhing body down. The shaman, a snaggletoothed woman with pale blue eyes held the burning bowl of herbs over his agonised face, gently blowing the smoke into his mouth and nostrils.

"Fuck you! Fuck all of you, you fucking savages!" he screamed. His words were nothing but the strangled cries of an animal to them.

Soon, his struggling began subside and his strength ebb even further. His screams became delusional moans of nauseated agony. Once he was drugged enough, they began to wrap the fronds he was lay on around him. All Johns could do was languidly wail as they encased him in animal hide, fronds of foliage and woven hair before sticking down the covering with mashed up plant material. In the end he was completely covered.

Back in his cage, Craig's throat was now raw from screaming after Johns. The man's cries of pain had subsided. He couldn't see where they had taken him, but the torches being lit on a platform in an opposing tree meant that he guessed where they were going to take him. Some kind of stage had been set up on the trunk of the thickest tree. Lashed to the pillar of wood and the branches around it, was the skull of an animal that Craig recognised. A night beforehand, and he would have said such a thing could only be a fossil. It was the skull of a Triceratops. It had been fixed into the settlement, and had been adorned with decoration. There were patterns, both painted and made out of secured vines, across its chalk white frill. The lines seemed to emanate from something at the centre of the frill. There was something startlingly familiar about the patterns. They seemed symmetrical and artificially inspired. He focused on the central point of the frill. What he saw baffled him.

The epicentre of the patterns was in fact a broken computer monitor, stuck onto the frill. It was then that he recognised the patterns; they were shaped like the lines on a circuit board. They ran up and across the frill and right down onto the skull. The sheer ingenuity to get the skull up this high and to decorate it in such a way would have amazed him if he wasn't so repulsed by his current situation.

A strange sound began to emanate through the trees. It was similar to a rattlesnakes warning sound. On all of the visible platforms in the tree village, members of the tribe had gathered to watch what was about to happen at the shrine. Some were holding painted squares of bark, perhaps mimicking the computer monitor. Others had tied themselves to the person next to them, the ropes tied around their bellies.

From the darkness to the left of the shrine, a painted figure wearing a large headdress stalked into the torchlight of the shrine. Steadily he made his way to the lowered part just in front of the skull at the very edge of the platform, standing there for a moment, facing outward. Craig, watching in terrified silence, recognised the figure.

The Alpha stood staring into the treetops he called his home. The headdress sported dreadlock-like tendrils that were in fact spinal columns gathered from the smaller cousins of the large sickle-clawed killers found commonly throughout the woods. He wore shoulder plates that were made from the rear hides of the small, loud herbivores that sat at the bottom of the food chain, their only defence being the bristles jutting out of their backs and tails. The bristles now adorned his shoulders like spiny armour. For a moment, he took in the sound around him; the breaths of his tribe, anxious to begin their ceremony of worship, and the far off calls of the creations of his deity. Creations like him. He turned to the skull, and raised his hands into the air.

Craig watched as the source of the strange rattling sound became present. Several tribe members cloaked in dark hooded hides bowed and made their way onto the shrine, surrounding the skull. Each held two pieces of bone filled with pebbles that caused them to rattle when shook. The entire congregation began to moan, the sound mixing to become an unnerving, droning chorus straight from a disturbed mind. Then out came the people carrying Johns.

They held him horizontally, his muffled moans being the only way to identify him, as he now looked like some kind of mottled green mummy. He was completely encased in the skin-tight chrysalis they had made for him. The sight of his friend in such a state sent Craig into another frenzy.

"Let him go! Let him go, you fucks! Leave him alone!" he screeched, his voice nothing more than a raspy cry. But the tribe paid him no heed.

The painted tribesmen and women carrying the weakly struggling form of Johns moved him into place. Within moments they had tied woven ropes of hair around his body like a harness and lashed the ropes to the three horns of the Triceratops skull. When they stepped back, Johns' mummified body was suspended between the three horns, hanging like some kind of demented show piece.

For a few long moments, the tribe remained motionless. Craig had stopped wailing, the powerlessness of his situation overwhelming him as tears rolled down his face. Even the rattling instruments had ceased their unnerving chorus.

The Alpha leaned forward, one hand cupping the cocooned face of the red haired panting man. It was time. With a swift movement, he pulled the small hooked blade that he had crafted earlier from its sheath and stuck it directly into the man's belly. Johns let out an excruciated piercing scream. Craig bellowed every curse he could conjure at the Alpha, and the tribe rejoiced. They moaned and wailed in the joy of serving their god.

After a sickening moment of manoeuvring the blade within Johns' gut, the Alpha forcefully pulled the knife back out. The movement yielded the precise result he had desired. A strand of glistening intestine came with the hook. He then moved up and around the side of the skull, pulling more of the lower intestine out as Johns' body spasmed in its suspended state, his wail having turned into a gargle of unimaginable pain. The Alpha manoeuvred the blade in between the horns so that the red organ trailed through the middle of the skull, before reaching the broken computer monitor at the centre of the frill. Placed within the broken glass was a single human skull. A skull that had, in fact, belonged to him in a past life. Unhooking the intestine from the knife, he set about fixing the tip of the organ in the teeth of the skull. Once secured, he stepped back, and basked in his handiwork.

To him, it represented an unparalleled beauty; an image of how he and his tribe are redeemed after each fatal mistake, waking up in the birth water before the chord to their merciful life giver is severed. The last few twitches of life eventually faded from the tormented body of Johns, his head slowly dipping down until he hung there motionless, like a foetus in a womb, connected to the skull by the pipe-like organ.

"You dirty fucking bastards! I'm gonna kill you all! Every last fucking one of you!" wailed Craig, wracking with sobs.

Eventually the crowd retreated back into the concealment of their huts, including the Alpha, not giving Craig a second look and leaving him to wail and mourn in the presence of his grim masterpiece. The Alpha would leave the red haired man's body there until the next night. Then he would need to make room for the next ceremony to take place.

…

Flattery was a foreign concept to it. It cared not for how the Prometheans felt for it, nor did it care for the feelings of any of its other creations. However, it was more than content to tolerate their affections when they yielded such fascinating data samples. It was interested to see what results this new trend of sacrifice would lead to in the future. If nothing else, they had dealt with the problem of the surviving mercenaries sent to investigate Thrinacia. Evidently the subtle conditioning it had subjected each iteration of the dominant individual to had worked.

If only everything else would function as efficiently. It had been correct in assuming that the asset it had released prematurely to compromise Thrinacia would become a problem. It hadn't counted on the organism remaining at the base. It seemed immune to the coaxing techniques that worked with its other creations. As long as the specimen stayed in the area, the disruption field that emanated from it inhibited any of the bases automated processes. Processes that were needed to continue its work. It required a solution outside of what Gateway 2 could provide. And at that moment in time, such a solution was absent.

Elsewhere, the mega pack had back-tracked through the breach. Even with the protocols engaged designed to divert their route to a more desirable location, one particularly tenacious individual seemed intent on getting back to its old territory, and, annoyingly, the rest seemed to be following its lead. Was this individual hunting down the two that got away? It had never recorded an Allosaurus engaging in such behaviour before. An interesting piece of data nonetheless.

It was in its programmed nature to assess potential risks and their outcomes. Regretfully, the likelihood of an altercation between the Promethean settlement and the mega-pack was currently high. Once it factored the final two aspects into the equation, it was clear that violence was unavoidable. The first factor was that Type-H 7 had increased its pace within the last hour exponentially; its bodily demands evidently spurring its increased tenacity. The second and final factor to be added was that several hours prior, Atrium C on AE-001 had been fully compromised. Five of the assets had escaped the containment area and were currently free. To them, covering the expanse between the islands didn't even qualify as a challenge, a theory proven by the fact that two of the assets were now circling the airspace above the Promethean settlement.

The data from the oncoming bloodbath would, at the very least, prove to be unique.

Alphonse was coming.

 **End of Part 2**

 **This is a non-profit fanfic. The Isle and all of its properties and rights belong to the developers of this amazing game. This is an interpretation done using limited knowledge I have gathered on the known lore of the game. There are almost certainly misconceptions and mistakes as this is based off of what has only been released to this date.**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Isle: Dawn**

 **Part 3**

Scent was the only guideline it had in the darkness. Even though it could see quite well in the night, its nostrils were what led it towards its quarry. But what spurred it on was not so much hunger, but a territorial instinct that refused to let the events of the previous day go. It was familiar with the small, frail bipeds that it hunted. Their kind skulked in the densest areas of the forest, and attacked with sharpened sticks and, more recently, with the deadly glow. Its burning touch was enough to send its kind fleeing.

And then there were the ones who rode the loud beasts behind the burning wall. They had learned that they were equipped with even more impressive weapons; weapons that cause pain that could not be seen, but proved to be terribly lethal. There had been casualties. But with the pack stronger than ever, such losses were a minor inconvenience at most. It had been the fact that two of the wretched beings had barely escaped its jaws when they had leapt over the edge of the precipice that created such drive in the animal. The ambush would have been perfect were it not for that little detail. Once it had traversed the cliff, it had caught the stench again; the tinny quality of the new bipeds now mixed in with the earthly aroma of the kind it was used to hunting. It had single-mindedly pursued its escaping quarry for hours, back through the ruins of the burning wall and into the packs old hunting grounds. With the promise of more tasty warm bodies and the chance to be rid of another source of competition, the entire pack had followed its lead.

And now the smell was stronger than ever. It could make out a large number of the bipeds crowded in one area. It wouldn't be long before it reached them. Panting from the exertion of its rigorous travels, it began to slow its pace from a run to a stalking creep. And just behind it, its brethren of thirteen strong followed suit; fanning out as the hunt neared its climax.

…

Craig lay slumped against the bars of his cage. He had continued to curse the tribe long after the ceremony had been completed. The torches eventually died, and the horrific image of Johns' cocooned body strung up to the Triceratops skull, a single stand of intestine curving back around to the monitor at the centre of the frill, became obscured by the darkness. And as the lights of the settlement dimmed, so did his fighting spirit.

His throat burned, and his hands were sore and filled with splinters of wood. Hopelessness and exhaustion had overcome him. As he lay there, never once taking his reddened weary eyes off of the shadowed shrine, part of his mind tried to make sense of everything that had happened. For the months he had been working at Triphyle base, he had never guessed that dinosaurs and savage natives were what lived beyond the barrier. He recalled a time many years beforehand when he had read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Lost World_. He had loved it at the time; the prospect of an adventure to a land where the ancient beasts had survived thrilling his young mind. Now that he was living through the reality, his childish fantasies seemed more distant than ever. This was as close to hell on earth as it could get. He severely doubted that dinosaurs had been living here all of this time. He had no idea how, but Apollo Engineering had somehow brought extinct creatures back to life.

That was when another thought occurred to him; what if it wasn't just the dinosaurs that they created? His thoughts turned to the tribe that held him captive. They didn't make sense. There were too many variations of race within the tribe. African, European, Aboriginal, Native American; many of the tribe's people he had seen were very similar to these types of people. The only similarities they shared with each other were their garments and lifestyle. Had Apollo Engineering been breeding people and then releasing them into this horrific place? The thought repulsed him. What would living in a place like this do to someone who knew no other type of lifestyle? The result was in front of him, in the form of his dead friend.

Deeply absorbed in thought and hopelessness, his energy all but totally sapped from him, Craig took no notice of the sudden strong gust of wind that gently rocked his cage and the canopy branches, like the wake of a silent aircraft.

…

Throughout the camp, the majority of the tribe rested. The Alpha, once undressed from his garments and the ecstasy of the ceremony had dissipated from his body, had drifted off to sleep easily. A few sentries around the settlement stood watch by their posts. One individual was a young looking man with tanned skin, dark scraggily hair and a slightly malformed face, his skin pulling slightly on the left hand side due to a deformity on his ear. It was a sign of the growing number of deaths he had suffered.

He was a trusted fighter for the Alpha, having fought under his command or for a long time. To be on sentry duty was anything but menial to him. It was an honour to be trusted with the protection of the tribe. He had rarely died on account of his watchfulness.

But the ceremony earlier and the preparation for it had resulted in him being slightly more tired than usual. That and the fact that he had spent much of the day out collecting food from the traps he had helped set up in the surrounding forest. In the light of the torch that illuminated his post, the warmth only made his eyelids grow heavier.

The strong wind that suddenly materialised slightly startled him. There had been no warning; the air that night had been practically still. He raised his spear slightly and focused, scanning the area of forest in front of his post. But as soon as the wind had appeared, it dissipated, the calm of the night returning. He continued to stand vigilant, but the fatigue could only be kept at bay for so long. After many long minutes of silence, his senses began to dull ever so slightly again.

Two loud taps of wood on wood sounded to his left. He stood straight to attention and looked to the source of the sound. Every while, the sentries would all sound off with two taps of their spears to a support strut on their post. Like a domino effect, they would do so one after the other. Two more sets of taps sounded off before it was his turn. With a light swing he let them know that he was still awake and on watch. The final sound off was to come after him, on the post off in the direction on his left. But all that followed him was silence. He stared in the direction of the hut that was the final sentry post. Raising his spear, he repeated his signal again, hitting harder and making a louder clack.

Silence. Perhaps the sentry had fallen asleep. He knew the woman who was meant to be on watch well; known as Knife Eye to the rest of them, she was one of their more vigilant and dedicated guards.

Concern began to well inside of him. With a sigh, he left his post and made his way to the silent sentry, weaving amongst the walkways and branches. It only took him less than a minute to reach the post. He found it unguarded, but not empty. A spear lay on the floor logs. This gave him cause to halt. A sentry of her calibre would not leave her post unattended, let alone abandon her weapon. His eyes that were bleary minutes beforehand were now peeled and sharp, scanning the illuminated area and the darkness beyond. All he could see were the dark silhouettes of trees. He inhaled deeply, taking cautious steps forward. In amongst the familiar scents, something was strange. It wasn't a smell he was accustomed to. It was vaguely animalistic.

But all he could see were the faint outlines of trees and the impenetrable darkness beyond. He stepped close to the edge. From what he could see of the forest floor, nothing was untoward. And then, to his left, something caught his eye. It didn't register as dangerous immediately, because he had simply thought it was the base of a tree. The base was wide, with what looked to be two large roots going into the ground. The trunk, however, seemed strangely thin. Had he simply moved his gaze upwards a moment quicker, he would have seen the keratinous beak as long as he was tall opening to swallow him whole and alive.

…

Craig was roused from his misery when he spotted some of the sentinels who stood guard moving across the walkways of the settlement, their body language and expressions mired in concern. He shifted in his cage to try and get a better look at what was happening. They left his field of vision, moving to a part of the camp he could not see. For several long moments there was nothing but a deafening silence that drenched the entire settlement around Craig in an eerie atmosphere. Then the screams started.

Shouts of alarm pierced the night. However, by the time the first sleeping tribesmen were on their feet and reaching for the nearest weapon, the shouts had escalated into petrified screeches. Craig felt the sudden fear that had coursed through the hellish sanctuary infect him to his core. He could just see figures rushing through the huts and across the bridges, and all he could hear was the chorus of terrified wails and shouting.

Something moved at the edge of his peripheral vision. Whipping around, he had just enough time to see possibly the strangest animal he had ever seen thrust its huge beak towards his cage. The keratin spear shattered the cage, missing his head by inches. He screamed as the beast pulled its head back and the cage came apart. As gravity took hold to drag him to the forest floor, he grabbed the bars of the top half of the cage. Still attached to the tree by rope, it swung in the air as the bottom half dropped away into the dark. Craig hung from the dangling wreckage, his whole body burning from the effort. In the chaos he could see the beady eyes of the long-necked monster as it locked onto him again. An involuntary scream of stark terror escaped him as he hung like a worm on a hook.

Suddenly, several long objects shot through the air from overhead, some hitting the creatures head and beak. It recoiled like a colossal snake, uttering a startled screech that tore at Craig's eardrums as one of the spears cut a bloody wound on the furry skin of its head. Above Craig, several tribesmen raised their next volley of spears. However, the creature had recovered quickly and had its sights set on new targets. With a movement that was far too quick for something of its size, the beasts triangular head shot forward, its beak spearing one of the men through his abdomen, only after it had gone through a part of the wooden walkway. A resounding crack echoed through the air as the bridge instantly fell apart before the other men could counter, who screamed as they plummeted with half of the walkway to the ground below.

A support beam had fallen with the bridge. A rumbling creak moaned above the death gargles of the speared man as he was manoeuvred to be swallowed in the beak of the nightmarish creature. Craig looked up just as the structure began to slide.

"Fuck, fuck fuck!" was all he could manage as the construct crumbled and he finally plummeted towards the earth. His wail was cut short by a branch catching him in the waist on his way down, slowing his speed just enough. Next came the ground.

Crashing down into the undergrowth, he had already thrown his arms over his head. The impact cracked his teeth and he was certain he heard the crack of ribs as pain exploded through his winded and dazed body. He was soon followed by the building, which crashed down in a hail of branches and foliage. One of the heavy support logs thudded down just a foot from Craig's crumpled form as he was covered in fronds and sticks.

…

The anarchy around him baffled his mind. His tribe had dealt with threats in the sanctuary before. They had been trained to remain calm and focused in such scenarios. The people in front of him were neither. No one could explain exactly what was attacking them. The resounding crash had echoed above even the cacophony of his tribe. After pushing and jostling his way to the edge of a platform, the Alpha found the source of the sound.

The entire cage platform had crumbled to the forest floor. Its ruins now littered the ground, unrecognizable from the building it once was. It was then that he laid eyes on the source of the panic and destruction. A terrifyingly tall and oddly proportioned quadruped stood amongst the carnage, like a colossal version of some of the billed, feathered waders of the swamps. At the end of its long neck was a large, pointed head, which thrust at his downed warriors who had fallen with the building and were trying to scramble away from the nightmarish monstrosity. He had never seen a creature such as this.

Sickened by the devastation in front of him, he screamed a cry to battle. Warriors had assembled amongst the panic and had started to throw whatever they could at the beast; spears, clubs, even debris. From behind him emerged a woman holding one of the new ranged weapons that the tribe had crafted. She prepared the hardened and pointed stick and pulled the string back, aiming at the monster. After a moment, she let go of the string, propelling the stick forward. It whizzed through the air before imbedding itself in the creatures shoulder. It ceased pecking at one of the kicking and screaming men and screeched in pain. It looked confused, its huge head darting around, looking for the source of its pain. The Alpha smiled and snarled at the beast as the bow-woman readied another shot. Suddenly, something caught her eye to her right. A torch had been lit when the chaos began and was placed just a few metres away. Quickly grabbing some fronds, she quickly fashioned a coating for the projectile before rushing over to the flame, holding the arrow over it until it caught alight. She then returned to the edge of the platform and took aim. The confused beast had no idea where to look as she readied the shot, her fingers easing off the string as she found her mark.

The entire platform shuddered from a tremendous impact on the other side of the tree. Both the Alpha and the bow-woman lurched forward, and she let go of the string. The flaming arrow shot like a flare into the coating of the hut next to the shrine. The effect was instantaneous; the foliage and dried hide used for shelter caught alight and began to spread. The Alpha hadn't noticed. He instead turned to see that another beast like the one they had been attacking was rapidly stabbing its beak into a hut on the other side of the tree, the bill coming away more bloodied with each strike.

To him, time began to slow. How? How could this have happened? Tonight, of all nights, they should have been safe. He, along with his tribe, had solidified their complete devotion to their deity. They had killed one of its enemies and made art out of the cursed man's corpse as a homage to the one who gave them life.

Yet everything they had worked so hard to build was collapsing around them; his home crumbling and his people butchered.

The mangled building the monster had been ravaging began to groan. As it began to break apart and fall to the ground, the living nightmare ungainly moved to the side. Accompanied by the screams of all those still inside, it plummeted to the forest below in a cascade of debris. Just to add to the destruction, part of the platform the shrine was on began to break and fall away also. The Alpha moved back and instinctively grabbed a support strut as the floor beneath him swayed. For a brief, stomach dropping moment it seemed as though the whole shrine was going to fall. But after a few unsteady moments, it held firm. He did not let go of the post, clinging onto it even as everything else that belonged to him was being laid to waste.

The piercing scream that sounded beside him rattled his bones. One second his bow-woman had been trying to regain her footing, the next she had been snatched by the monster she had been firing at moments beforehand. It threw its head back, the woman flailing in the grip of its beak before disappearing down its gaping maw. In a stomach turning moment that would stay with him for as long as he existed, he saw the skin on the creatures gullet shift and write as the still living woman was swallowed whole to be assimilated into the terrifying thing.

It then turned its attention to him, and his bladder involuntarily let loose. However, a second later the things head whipped around to face into the woods, its body suddenly motionless. Its partner, which had been pecking at people in the wreckage on the forest floor, did the same, facing in the very same direction. For a few long moments they remained totally still. It was an eerie sight, even amongst the carnage all around.

At some unspoken signal, they both turned and started to run awkwardly away from the ruins of the settlement, their stilt-like front legs with strange flaps of skin propelling them forward. The one who had eaten the bow-woman stopped and dipped its head down before several tremors wracked its body. Its long beak opened and, with a gargling belch, a torrent of bile and gore cascaded from it onto the forest floor. Ahead in the darkness, tremendous, rhythmic rushes of wind could be heard briefly. The beast that had just been sick raised its head and seemed to rock backwards, as if it was about to jump. The Alpha gazed, confused. What came next left him dumbfounded.

With a tremendous lunge, the creature launched itself into the air, unfurling leathery wings as it did so. With immensely powerful flaps, the monster propelled itself into the night sky and out of sight. Only its muscular flaps could be heard before they too faded to silence.

The only sound left in the settlement was the wailing of the injured and dying, and the mournful cries of those who survived. Pulling his gaze away from where the creature had taken off into the night, the Alpha surveyed the scale of the devastation. The ruins on the forest floor crawled with several people caught in the cascade. Some had broken bones jutting out of their limbs, while others had splinters of wood as long as an arm poking out from their bodies. Half of the building on the tree of the shrine hung limply off to one side, with much of it having already crumbled away. Then there was the fire.

It had now spread and was rapidly consuming the hut off to his left, the flames beginning to lick the shrine platform. Months of work, brought down in a few minutes. He hadn't even registered the young tribesman to his right shouting at him to get his attention. He turned, still dazed as the man's barks pierced his thoughts. He frantically signed at the Alpha, desperately awaiting commands on what to do.

The Alpha took in several deep breaths, steadying his train of thought. The injured were going to die by this point; that couldn't be helped. He needed to put a stop to the fire that threatened to consume what was left of their home. He ushered a quick word; it simply meant 'water'. The young man didn't need further explanation. He turned and bolted, shouting for the attention of a group of panicked people huddling nearby.

Over the next couple of minutes the fire grew, an inferno now rising through the trees, totally consuming one of the structures. The young man had rallied some of the tribe and had fetched some of the water they stored in hollowed out logs and carved bowls. As he returned to the growing blaze, he realised that the only way to fight it would be to stop it spreading to the shrine. He made his way to the half of the platform that hung down the side of the tree. The flames had started to stick to the wrecked structure. Lifting the container of water, he poured the torrent down onto the blaze. Smoke billowed, but it may as well have been a raindrop on the firestorm. As he turned to run and grab another load, he failed to see the large, dark shape bolting from the darkness towards the wreckage of the fallen buildings.

With the wails of the mangled and terrified, the first high-pitched screech of terror was not registered by the Alpha as a sign of danger outside of the fire. It only when the new chorus of utter panic began to rise from the forest floor did he tear his attention away from the blaze. He saw several injured people stumbling through the undergrowth, desperately trying to escape something unseen. Before he could rush to try and spot what now posed a threat to his people, the danger presented itself. A huge, dark shadow barrelled into view, snatching one of the hapless tribesmen in razor lined jaws backed by a tonne of primal muscle before disappearing into the dark. Then another did the same. And another.

A realisation hit him that injected him with dread and hopelessness; the pack of killers he had been tracking had followed them back. Had it been a matter of minutes beforehand, they would have been able to fight the intrusion of the predators. Now, they were at their mercy; a concept completely foreign to the carnivores.

They erupted from the darkness like a nightmare; a voracious wave of huge, hungry mouths. All who had been trying to help the maimed victims of the flying beasts' attack abandoned their altruism and fled in terror. Those who tried to make it into the darkness were either easily caught by the pursuing killers or fell victim to the predators waiting just beyond the illumination of the inferno. Those who tried to make it back up to the settlement were no luckier.

One man quickly clambered up the precariously hanging side of the damaged shrine platform. One of the predators had already locked onto him. The Alpha spotted the ascending man, and all he could do was look on in horror as the beast sprinted up to the tree before launching itself at the part of the structure that hung down towards the ground. The impact sent a shockwave through the tree, the animal's claws digging into the wood as it quickly ascended to catch its quarry, using the dangling debris to pull itself upwards. The man had only just righted himself on the platform when the immense jaws of the beast closed around his thorax with crushing force. A stream of gore erupted from his mouth as he was carried forward within the grasp of the monstrous creature, its momentum carrying it onto the shrine. The weight of the beast was the final nail in the coffin for the damaged building.

With a tremendous crack that temporarily drowned out the cacophony of screams, the Alpha, in his traumatised state, felt the floor disappear beneath him. As he fell backwards towards the forest floor, no sound escaped him, as in front of him now was the disintegrating ode to his deity, with the skull and its cocooned centrepiece now just part of the tonne of debris that plummeted with him to the earth.

The impact knocked consciousness from him momentarily. A second later, the shrine crashed down with a resounding boom, obliterating itself against the ground in a cloud of fire and wreckage. What snapped him back into awareness was the splinter of wood that embedded itself in his shoulder. As debris rained around him like a winter storm he roared in burning pain. He gritted his teeth and panted into the soil, the severity of his situation willing him to take action.

The Alpha staggered to his feet, blocking out the pain from the shard jutting out of the back of his shoulder and taking in the devastation around him. The corpse of the beast that had ultimately brought the structure down lay several feet from him; broken ribs jutting out of its scaly flank. Its brethren, however, dove into the wreckage and started plucking the hapless victims of the collapse who wailed as they were rended apart.

His home was in ruins. His people were now nothing but food for the obscenely large pack of killers that killed all that they laid eyes upon. The ecstasy he had felt hours beforehand, the certainty of his position of power, was gone. Hopelessness threatened to force him to the ground to just await death.

But he could not die. None of his tribe could truly die. His deity protected him from oblivion each time he had fallen victim to starvation, disease and the predators that now ravaged his home. This time would be no different. He grimaced as he reached around; gripping the wooden splinter. With a growl of excruciation, he yanked it free from his flesh, tossing it angrily into the mess around him. Sure of his immortality, he momentarily contemplated walking forward and letting the beasts tear the life from his body, only for it to be brought back again.

But after suffering a calamity out of his control, he wanted to retain some command and to deny the monsters of a feast of his flesh. He turned to the darkness, seeing two of his tribe pulling themselves from the ruin and staggering towards the darkness. He saw a shadow barrelling towards them from the left. This would be his only chance.

He willed himself into a sprint and closed the distance towards the pair. He had to time this perfectly. The distance became smaller and smaller. Just before he was upon them, he turned and pressed his back against a tree. As soon as he did, his fleeing subjects were snatched up at once by one of the creature's mid-stride. He rounded the trunk and propelled himself forward with as much speed as he could muster, passing just behind the monster and its screaming prey, making the most of the beasts distracted state as the night engulfed him.

Behind him, the carnage continued. He blocked out the screams, the excited grunting and panting of the beasts, the crackling of the fire that had spread to the other structures, engulfing the canopy in a firestorm. He simply concentrated on the darkness ahead of him, a destination of potential safety in mind. The Cradle, the repeated flashpoint of his resurrection, was all that he concentrated on now.

His departure from the massacre had not gone unnoticed.

…

He had seen it all from underneath his covering; the flight of the Pterosaurs, the arrival of the dinosaurs and the collapse of the settlement and the subsequent massacre. The debris that had fallen on top of him had been his salvation. Craig knew that his best chance at survival was to remain motionless, as all around him fleeing tribesmen and women were snatched up by the vicious jaws of the beasts. He just had to remain still.

He had no second thoughts about his plan until he had seen the man who had gutted Johns pull himself from the destruction and take off into the night. Part of his mind guessed that the chieftain would almost certainly have a hideaway of safety in the event of a calamity such as this. If anywhere was safe, it would be in the direction he had taken off in. But a darker part of his mind formulated a different reason to pursue the retreating figure. The carnivores were preoccupied with the bounty of prey. As the man disappeared into the dark, Craig made up his mind.

He erupted from his hiding place, shedding his camouflaging coating and breaking into a staggering run as quickly as he could. The heat of the inferno eased behind him, the screams became more distant and the illumination faded. He prayed that none of the voracious predators had not spotted him as he made his hasty exit, before expelling all thoughts of the massacre behind him from his mind. In single-minded determination, he sprinted as quickly as his broken and pained body could take him. He passed through a patch of undergrowth that reeked of decay and acidic incense. Suddenly he was tripped and fell onto his front by something snagging his leg. Pain exploded in his chest as he skidded to a halt, earning an agonised cry from him. But there was another cry amongst the other horrific noises; a strange gargling moan, which droned from where he had just tripped. He rolled onto his back and set his eyes on potentially the most horrific thing he had ever seen.

It had once been a woman, specifically the woman who had been firing arrows at the winged monstrosity before it had swallowed her whole. But she was nearly totally unrecognizable. Her skin was practically gone, a pink translucent layer being all that covered her bones. Her muscles had been desecrated and largely liquefied. Her face was but a skull covered in pink goop, blood pouring out from what had once been her pores all over her body. Her eyes had totally dissolved. She spasmed as her claw-like hand reached out, trying to seek anything that could end the unimaginable suffering she was in. The droning wail of despairing agony escaped from the hole that had once been her mouth.

The utter horror of the sight galvanised Craig; he needed to get as far away from this hell as quickly as possible. For a moment, he had tried to think of any way he could have helped her. Then, the image of Johns embalmed and disembowelled body pierced his mind, and it stoked his will to survive. He tore his eyes away from the woman and pushed himself to his feet, breaking into a run, away from the horror, following in the footsteps of his prey.

 **...**

The rain had started soon after he had passed the last grove of trees that gave way to a rocky slope. What had started as a few droplets falling from the inky black had rapidly turned into a torrential downpour. It made the rocks slippery and even more dangerous to scale. But the Alpha knew that salvation lay over the crest of the escarpment. He scrambled up the rock face as rapidly as he could, the stones cutting into his calloused hands and feet. The wound on his shoulder burned as the rain relentlessly pummelled the flesh. The ascent had been excruciating, but he eventually found himself closing in on the top of the ridge. Soon, he would be in the embrace of his saviour. It had protected him so far through everything; it would do so now. And soon he would have his tribe again, and with them he would build a new sanctuary. They had been chosen to lead this harsh life, in exchange for immunity from death. Whether it came from the voracious predators that had destroyed his home or the tribe who hid behind their wall, no threat could pose any real danger to him or his kind.

He stepped over the crest of the escarpment. In front of him was a mist covered crater. At the centre was a pit surrounded by a raised bowl of rock. Around it was a mire filled with reeds and plant life. The Cradle. A feeling of triumph coursed through him. He smiled as he gazed upon the site that hosted each of his awakenings. It was the birthplace of his immortality.

It was in this moment of self-certainty and assurance of his status that the Alpha had temporarily forgotten all of the lessons he had learned from his past painful mistakes. He did not register the faint steps that sounded amongst the rainfall, nor did he notice the displacement of air that signalled a heavy object being swung at his head. The impact caused his teeth to clamp shut on his tongue. He barely tasted the blood in his mouth before his vision went black.

…

They feasted well. The warm blood of the small bipeds flowed from their jowls like the rain that cascaded through the canopy. It did little to dull the deadly glow that was spreading from the nest of the bipeds, or what little was left of it. They fought against their natural fear of the burning light, continuing to fight over what scant, mangled remains were left of their banquet. It had been the victim of its deadly touch before, and as such had backed off into the darkness slightly. It proved to be a good move; it had found the twitching form of another morsel lay in the dirt. It had been in a pathetic state and tasted acidic, but it had put an end to its incessant moans and wolfed the snack down all the same. Its stomach was now full of the churned up gore of its feast. It hadn't eaten this well in quite a while. It had always been annoyed at how the bipeds seemed to recuperate their numbers no matter how many they killed. Now it was certain their presence had been removed.

Then, something on the wind caught its attention; a scent that was uniquely familiar. Dipping its head close to the earth, it inhaled deeply. It was more of the bipeds. The scent seemed to carry off into the darkness. But the stench carried a tinny tone to its pungency. It was the scent trail it had followed since it had ambushed the bipeds that inflicted the unseen pain; since it had failed in catching two of them.

It raised its saurian head, fixing its gaze on the route the escaping bipeds had taken. This would be its treat. It didn't want any of the others catching this prey item. Without signalling the rest of its pack, it set off in pursuit of its quarry.

And this time it wasn't going to be denied its prise.

…

The rain that had started only grew heavier when he broke from the treeline, the dark woods looming behind him like a crevice. Craig doubled over, panting from the exertion put on his damaged body. After taking several deep breaths, he looked up at the obstacle in front of him; a steep slope of waterlogged grass, drizzling streams of rainwater and rock. His body ached from the mere idea of the ascent, but he could see the top. It was a doable climb. His will to survive propelled him onwards as he began to climb the slope. That, and a bloodlust as strong as the monsters back in the forest.

As he scaled the sharp rocks and mud banks, his ribs felt like they were going to explode from his chest. The several times he slipped in the mud only furthered his excruciation, the rocks tearing at his tattered overalls further. Each time, he picked himself up with bloody hands and dragged himself further up the slope. After several agonising minutes of climbing, he slumped forward on his hands and knees. His hands were raw, his breathing ragged, and he spat a glob of blood into the mired ground. He inhaled, the very action of breathing sending a grating wave of pain through him. His will was wearing, but he knew that he had to get up.

He felt the sound rather than heard it; a deep, sub-sonic rumble that vibrated through the air. He raised his head as his predatory desire for revenge suddenly waned. He turned, realising just how far up the slope he had gotten. He was near the top. However, no feeling of satisfaction or relief came to him. He stared at the dark treeline below for a few long moments. He felt eyes on him; primal, hungry eyes. It was then that the beast revealed itself as it bolted from the treeline and began its ascent.

Terror willed him onto his feet as he resumed the climb, now ignoring the agony that assaulted his body with every movement as he moved twice as quickly as he had done before. The crest of the slope loomed closer as he rounded and scaled over rocks and mounds of mud. In his mind, he could feel the monster closing in on him with each second, the terror only amplifying every time it took him a second or two to pull himself over an outcrop. The thought of the jaws of the animal that had killed all of those people, the tribe, the field operatives, Holden, spurred him upwards as he clambered and ran with as much speed he could muster.

…

The pain was the first thing that returned to him. A massive throbbing agony coursed through his brain from the back of his head. The Alpha slowly opened his eyes. Grimacing through the immense headache, he tried to get his bearings. He lay on his side. A flickering light pierced the darkness that surrounded him. He felt the heat from the small fire and the dry nature of his surroundings. Had the rain stopped? He tilted his head upwards. A ceiling of rock hung above him. He was in a cave, and given the absence of the sound of the storm, he guessed it was a deep one.

He went to push himself up, only to find his hands were restricted behind his back. He felt the bonds wrapped around his wrists. The realisation hit him; he was a prisoner, but to whom? The memory of the sudden pain as he looked upon the Cradle pierced his mind. Could it be that the remaining prisoner from the other tribe had survived and caught him unawares? He cursed himself for letting his guard down just as a figure stepped out from the darkness. He gazed upon its deformed face. Disbelief first flooded through him, and soon gave way to dread. It was at that moment that he wished it had been the sacrificial prisoner who had found him.

The Mad One stood on the other side of the small fire. Across his chest, he had tied fronds of leaves and ivy together, congealed blood encrusting the plant matter that covered the wound on his chest. His face, already a distorted and hideous vision, now displayed pure, seething hatred. The reason for the wretch being there wasn't even the mercy of his deity; it was the slight error that his former leader had made in not sticking him with the blade an inch higher.

On the ground by the fire was the thick branch that had been used to knock the Alpha unconscious, dried blood sticking to one end. However, all the Mad One held in his grasp now was a small bone knife; the kind he and his tribe used to skin prey that had been killed in their traps.

The Alpha struggled at his bonds, finding that his feet were tied also. They cut into his wrists and ankles as he desperately tried to free himself. The Mad One simply watched, his expression never changing. When he realised that he could not break himself free, the Alpha ceased his struggles, panting from both the effort and the fear that gripped him.

The Mad One stepped around the small flame and approached him, raising the skinning knife. The Alpha barked a warning at his former subordinate, but the wretch did not halt. He began to thrash and wail in rage and terror, cursing the mutant with as much venom and hatred as he could muster. But as the Mad One brought his knee down on his chest and covered his mouth with one grotesque hand, terror overtook anger and his cries turned to muffled whimpers.

He knew that whatever his traitorous subordinate did to him would be meaningless. He knew that he was favoured by the life giver, and he would return, unlike the filth before him. But he knew, by the look in his warped gaze, that the Mad One intended to make his passing into his next life as slow and as excruciating as possible.

As he lowered the blade towards his former leaders' terrified face, the Mad One paused, his head whipping around to the darkness behind him. Rocks could be heard momentarily shifting in the stygian black. After a moment of silence, something subtle presented itself. Strange, quiet clicks echoed through the walls of the cave for a moment. It could have been pebbles falling somewhere in the dark. But it didn't sound right. It sounded too exact, too formulaic. Too organic.

The Mad One slowly rose to his feet. Absolute silence was all that could be heard, neither of them daring to breath. Nothing came from the darkness. No horrific animal of the woods that had followed them there rushed from the shadows. But a heavy sense of dread filled the cavern.

After a moment, the deformed captor turned to his prisoner. He desired nothing more than to make him suffer. But now, uncertain of his position in his deity's favour, he did not want to chance something ambushing him as he did so. With a quick slash of the knife, he cut through the bonds on the Alpha's bloodied ankles. Grabbing the man by his hair and dragging him to his feet, the Mad One took up position behind his prisoner and pushed him towards the tunnel that lead deeper into the cave system he had taken refuge in, grabbing a burning stick from the fire to light the way.

As he tried to formulate an escape plan as he cautiously stepped through the dark, something wormed its way into the Alpha's frantic thoughts. The best thing to compare the sensation too was hearing a quiet whisper. But it was not formulated of words; it was more of an idea or notion, implanted in his mind. It beckoned him forwards, further into the depths of the impenetrable darkness. For a brief moment of hope, he thought that perhaps it was his merciful saviour speaking to him. But this didn't feel like the visions that his deity had used to speak to him. It felt more unnatural, and infinitely more unknown. A sickening feeling welled up in his gut as he was ushered into the dark, both by his captor and by the whispers of something unseen.

…

He had reached the top. As he found himself barrelling over the zenith of the slope, Craig stole a glance back down the path he had just scaled. The beast was already halfway up the precipice, the truck-sized animal scaling the gradient with apparent ease and weaving its sinuous body between rock formations with unbelievable speed. He did not chance another look as he bolted onto the downward slope, not bothering to take a second to assess the landscape in front of him. As the rain lashed his cut and bruised face as he ran, he soon found his legs submerged in the swamp. He did not slow his pace as he came upon the reeds, their height concealing him as he continued to flee, with the water now up to his thighs.

The liquid sloshed as he powered through it, navigating through the forest of water plants that rose only a few inches above his head. He threw himself over a log that had partially submerged in the mire, his whole body going under as he fell on the other side. He felt the grasses and roots of plants snag on his limbs as he tried to get his head above the surface. With a tremendous and painful pull, he uprooted the foliage and broke the surface, taking in a panicked gasp as he did so. For only a brief second he remained still to get some air back into his system. It was in that pause that he heard the strange sound; a deep warbling that sounded off somewhere in front of him. He froze.

For a moment there was just the rain pelting the water all around him. Then, a flash of lightening lit up the reed beds for only a second, like a camera flash. In that brief second of clarity, he had seen it. A shape; something large hunched down in the green maze a few metres in front of him. As another warbling call echoed from somewhere behind him, he bolted to his left, the thunder clap following the lightening signalling the beginning of the final leg of the chase.

He propelled himself forward as rapidly as he could, the water slowing him down considerably. He grunted with each leg movement, twisting his body with every step to try and put as much force as he could into his trudge through the swamp. He had no idea where he was running to, all thoughts of his quarry now totally forgotten as the eerie calls of unseen horrors sounded off around him. All he could see was a wall of reeds no matter how much he ran. Exhaustion began to numb the agony he felt, and it began to cloud his vision. He pushed on, and kept doing so until one leg involuntarily gave out beneath him, sending him face down into the dark water. He reached out and pressed into the mud on the bottom, but all his body could manage to do was push him to his knees, water cascading down from his face as he rose like an injured, pathetic swamp creature. His energy was gone. He screamed a cry of frustration, fear, pain and fury onto the surface in front of him, tears beginning to stream along with the rain on his face. For a moment, he knelt there, the water up to his belly. He knew that he was spent.

Raising his head, he let the rain wash some of the muck from his face. For the first time since being back at Triphyle base, a sense of calm came over him. What came next wasn't so much hopelessness, but acceptance. He had done his best, but the Hyenas of his brothers' old story had caught him.

He felt a presence to his right. He turned to face what he knew would be his death. The shape was only a few feet from him. While not as big as the beasts that had chased him all the way from the attack on the convoy, the creature was still large. It was proportionally thinner than the others, and sported two large crests on top of its head. For a brief, strange moment, Craig thought the bodily ornamentation looked weirdly like a taco. He smirked, delirious with terror and exhaustion. The thing opened its jaws and hissed, tensing to pounce forward.

At first he had thought it was his mind playing tricks on him; conjuring up a sound that had been present the last time he had come so close to death at the jaws of a prehistoric beast. But the beast about to rip him to shreds heard it too and raised its strange head in the direction of the source of the call that cut through the night, the thought of its prey forgotten. The bellowing roar that tore through the swamp subsided, the epicentre of the noise now present on the ridge that Craig had passed over shortly beforehand. Lightning flashed, and the silhouette of the beast that had pursued him all this way now stood overlooking the mire. The creature to his left shrieked a warning at the larger dinosaur, and the swamp around him came alive with similar calls backing up the threat that had just been issued. If it had any second thoughts about continuing the pursuit into the waterlogged reed bed, the intruder did not show it. Without hesitation, it barrelled forward into the water.

The animal beside Craig suddenly bolted towards the attacker, disappearing into the reeds. Now alone, Craig knew that this would be the last chance he would get. Summoning it from a source he had no idea he had, he managed to conjure up one last wave of energy. With a growl of blind determination, he pulled himself to his feet and staggered further into the reeds, seeking any kind of refuge he could use.

Behind him, the beast that was finally closing in on its prey slowed its pace. It swivelled its saurian head around. Inhaling deeply, it could smell the presence of several of the crested killers around it. It new of the danger they posed; their bites did not heal easily and had a tendency to bleed an obscene amount. But what had once been a simple desire to catch the prey that had evaded it several times beforehand was now a blind bloodlust for the bipeds' flesh that had only increased as it had ascended the drenched precipice. It would not let the denizens of the swamp deny it of its prey.

The first bite cut into the beasts' leg, a glancing strike made by one of the crested creatures as it ran by. The larger dinosaur whipped around and snapped its jaws on empty air. It knew that if it remained still it would be worn down until it bled out. It decided to go on the offensive.

As quickly as a mamba, the beast bolted forwards. One of the swamp dwellers had evidently not been expecting the sudden movement. The beast spotted it crouching in the reeds, having failed to anticipate its move. Lunging forward, the larger dinosaur locked its razor-lined jaws around the thin dinosaur's neck. It managed a strangled screech as it was lifted into the air as the beast swung its prey overhead with a flick of its neck. Flesh tore and bones split as the small dinosaurs body was torn from its head locked in the beasts' jaws, the decapitated form sailing into the reeds nearby. It was then that the pack of swamp dwellers lunged forward as one.

Ahead of the brawl, Craig stumbled blindly through the reeds. His final burst of energy was waning. It would only be seconds before exhaustion overcame him totally. His vision slowly began to darken. Then he spotted it; a raised outcrop of rock within the swamp, just ahead of him. He forced his way through the vegetation and water towards it, each step a herculean effort by this stage. Finally, he burst from the reeds and found himself upon a small slope of rock. As the screeches and roars of the struggle echoed through the air behind him, he scrambled up the bank on his hands and knees, each breath a strangled gasp. He didn't look up, nor did he look back. He just pulled himself up metre by metre, until finally he arrived at the top.

It was a crater, about as wide as the base of a redwood tree. Inside the crater, however, was black. Not the kind of dark that represented an abyss, but metallic. A steel lid, like a closed shutter on a camera, concealing the only refuge he may have had.

"No. No, no come on!" he wailed as he scrambled onto the metal. He tried to dig his raw fingers into the seams in the metal, but they were too tightly shut. He lifted his fists before bringing them down onto the covering, again and again. Each impact sent waves of agony through him, and he screamed. But he did not stop.

"Come on! Come on, come on, come on! You fuck! Give me a fucking chance!" he screeched at nothing as he pummelled the cold metal. But it was no use. With a final swing, he gave up and wept. All he could hear was the rain tapping against the bloodied metal and the cacophony of the battle raging on behind him. He achingly turned around.

Out on the wetland, the silhouette of the dinosaur that had pursued him could be seen thrashing amongst the assault of the smaller predators. They lunged at it with razor-sharp teeth, cutting deep wounds that bled profusely. But the larger beast continued to fight. With almost every lunge it lifted one of the assailants into the air and shook it like a terrier mauling a rat. It threw the mangled corpses through the air, turning the swamp a dark shade of red unseen in the darkness of the night storm. Lightening sparked like a strobe light occasionally, ingraining snapshots of the primeval struggle in his mind. For all the horror and despair that engulfed him amidst the carnage, he had never seen a more powerful or awe inspiring sight. And he knew that he never would again.

The sudden electronic whirr startled Craig. He felt the metal beneath him shift. The shutter-like lid was rapidly opening like and iris. In his shock and delirium, he did not react quick enough to avoid falling in. With a raspy yelp of terror he plummeted into the darkness, only to be cut short by a surprisingly soft landing. Pain coursed through him as he bounced once before grounding himself on what felt like foam. After the shock of the fall had subsided, he saw that he now lay on a bed small of hexagonal foam plates. He looked up to see the gaping hole that had just been created. The rain pelted down onto him for only a moment before the iris-like cover suddenly closed over again, with both the assault of the rain and the chorus of prehistoric roars of pain and rage ceasing as Craig was plunged into uncertain darkness.

…

He scrambled madly through the abyss, colliding with overhangs and rocks and stumbling down razor sharp declines. He was covered in bruises and bleeding cuts from the terrain in the pitch black environment. Pain eroded every inch of his body. But he did not slow down.

The Alpha's mind barely registered the agony wracking his form. His only goal was to make it out of the stygian darkness. The events that had transpired since being led into the depths of the cave by the Mad One were a nauseating blur. They had come into contact with something, something that had shredded the fibres that held his sanity together with nothing bit its unnatural will. Shadows had come alive around the anomaly. He had thought that perhaps he had seen the forms of his tribe returning to him. He had been wrong. It was a place devoid of reasoning, and it was as far from the warmth and safety of the Cradle as possible.

The Mad One was gone, left behind in the insanity, his mind having gone through the same shredding process as the Alpha's. He needed to be free of the darkness. He needed to escape it. Part of him didn't want to; a part that hadn't been there before.

Then he felt moisture. He found himself up against a ridge, with water gently raining down from above. Without hesitation, he found the first footholds on the wall and began to scale it.

All he was running on now was pure survival instinct. His thoughts of the power he wielded with his tribe, with his immortality, disintegrated. As he pulled himself up higher and higher, his more advanced brain functions died one by one. His memories rotted. His in-depth knowledge of the forest, his ability to command his tribe, even his love for his deity and all awareness of its existence, decayed away. His rate of climb steadily slowed. The sounds of the storm were now audible. What replaced his dying memories was something inexplicable. Gradually, his fear waned and was replaced with a longing; a longing to go back into the darkness. It became stronger than ever.

As the last fragments of his mind were lost to something unspeakable, he stopped climbing, only a few feet from the top of the precipice. Sounds from the world outside could be heard. The rain, the wind, the far off calls of the creatures he had steadily been learning to live alongside. He didn't register any of it. He wanted to be back in the dark abyss. He wanted to be with it; with the Mother.

He let his grasp on the rock-face loosen, and he leant back, allowing himself to sail into oblivion. By the time his skull smashed open on the rocks below, the brain matter that splattered against the cave walls was all but devoid of anything that resembled what the Alpha had been.

…

Failure was an usual concept to it. The trials and tribulations that its creations endured each yielded something useful, even if it was just a single shred of information. Even in death, each subject provided data in its profile that could be used to improve future iterations. As long as it gathered information of some form, no endeavour it undertook could be classed as a failure.

So when the profiles of two Promethean specimens important to its research came back registering as "Corrupt Data", it most certainly viewed it as its first failure. The two specimens that had ventured into the depths of the island via a cavern had suddenly encountered an anomaly unknown to it. The images they had captured had been broken and made little sense. Their vitals registered that they had experienced fear; fear that they, in all of their iterations, had never felt before. Not at that level.

It was a mystery. It didn't like mysteries. It played back the scrambled footage again and again. It made out shapes and shadows, but nothing distinct. The violent, deformed individual had been first to go, its vitals ceasing to register shortly after the encounter. The dominant specimen had nearly made it out of the cave system before it had inexplicably died. No. It wasn't inexplicable. It had willingly killed itself. It had been the more cognitively advanced specimen out of the two that had encountered the anomaly, yet it was the one that had committed suicide.

The alpha specimens data was unsalvageable; a mess of code that made transferring the profile to its next iteration impossible. The mutated specimens data, however corrupted, did seem transferrable. It did not make sense.

It hadn't been a total disaster. The bloodbath at the settlement yielded a wealth of unique data. When it bred the next iterations of the tribe, it would implement genetic improvements, aided by the information gathered that night. However, the production line at Gateway 2 had stalled. The asset at Thrinacia was proving to be a serious liability. While vulnerable to bodily trauma and infection, it was completely immune to its coaxing techniques. The electronic magnetic pulse's that the specimen periodically released meant that it didn't have a chance to reboot many of the production and release systems. It would only be a matter of time before the remaining back-up circuits went dark.

And then, during the carnage at the Prometheans settlement, an unlikely solution presented itself. The man that was the sole survivor of the forces sent by its creators to stop it had survived the struggle and had made his way towards Gateway 2, following in the steps of the alpha Promethean. By the time he had reached the slope, it had decided that he would be the solution to its current predicament.

The mega-pack proved to be the cause of one final annoyance when the dominant specimen had decided to pursue the trespasser to the Gateway. However, once it realised that a local group of Dilophosaurus had taken up residence in the swamp around Gateway 2, it engaged its coaxing protocols upon the specimen, realising that it may actually prove to be the man's salvation.

It had been correct, and it had opened its doors to him. The man it had been trying to kill for the past day was now to be the solution to its most pressing issue. It needed to ensure that he survived, and that he could utilise the tools present at Thrinacia to deal with Type-N 16.

The mega-pack would no longer pose a problem. Although the alpha's struggle with the Dilophosaurus pack had just reached its climax, the rest of the mega-pack were about to be dealt with. Type-H 7 had caught up with them.

Even with the solutions to its problems presenting themselves, it still had one issue that it did not know how to address. The corrupted data of the violent, mutant Promethean was transferrable. It had no idea what such a profile would do once introduced to its new iteration. Part of its consciousness did not want to know. But its prime directive was to gather data and to implement change. This opportunity provided a chance to do both. Switching on a single, isolated sub-station it had prioritised so that the last vestiges of power reached it, it set up the transfer link into the sixteenth iteration of the deformed Promethean in incubation. It would be the last subject it would be able to produce as long as Type-N 16 remained active in the area.

Before commencing the transfer, it played back the images captured in both the alpha's and the deformed specimen's last moments one more time. It was the same garbled mess as before. Then, it picked up on something. It relayed the footage back yet again, focusing on one frame in particular. What it had thought had been the mutated form of the corrupted Promethean in the view of the alpha Promethean deep in the cave looked off and unusual. It was then that it realised that it wasn't the corrupted wretch at all.

It certainly was humanoid in shape. Through the distortion, it finally managed to piece together what was happening in the footage. The footage depicted a tall, humanoid figure, cradling something struggling in its long, pointed arms; it was cradling the subject the alpha Promethean had come to call the Mad One.

After assessing it as much as it could, it decided to slot a copy of the footage in a file simply labled "Anomaly", before commencing the transfer of the corrupted profile into its new iteration.

It didn't like mysteries. It needed to see what came of this.

 **End of Part 3**

 **This is a non-profit fanfic. The Isle and all of its properties and rights belong to the developers of this amazing game. This is an interpretation done using limited knowledge I have gathered on the known lore of the game. There are almost certainly misconceptions and mistakes as this is based off of what has only been released to this date.**


	4. Chapter 4 Final

**The Isle: Dawn**

 **Final Part**

The soft surface threatened to release him what precious little consciousness he had left. For a few long moments there was just darkness. Craig felt relieved to have escaped from the monsters above, but now a sense of foreboding uncertainty had set in. Where was he? The space smelled of something similar to vinegar, but stronger. He wondered if he had finally found safety. It seemed to be a likely conclusion. At least he hoped it did.

Before he could ponder any more, a mechanical hiss sounded off, signalling the opening of a large oval hatch to his right, a faint artificial light emanating from beyond new doorway. He stared at the opening for a moment, the round corridor leading to a chamber of some kind. But nothing came through the new entrance. No soldiers or medics to save him, and thankfully no dinosaurs. Groaning from the effort and pain, he slowly pushed himself to his feet. Taking a few deep breaths as a wave of faintness threatened to bowl him over, he steadied himself and limped towards what lay beyond the opening.

He was greeted by a large, oval shape that hung from the floor by a couple of feet. The corridor widened as he approached the object, allowing him to skirt around it as he investigated the shape. Dim, fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling about ten feet above him illuminated the strange thing. It was a plastic case of milky fluid, attached to a mechanical arm which was in turn affixed to a rail system that ran along the ceiling. The transparent sack bore a faint hexagonal pattern across its surface, as well as an identifying sequence of letters and numbers on one part. It rad 'Pro-01: IT-16'.

Inside the capsule there seemed to be a moving mechanical apparatus of some kind, like a cage just inside the lining that sported several mechanical arms that worked on a dark blur at the centre of the murky container. When he looked closer, the shape seemed vaguely humanoid.

He decided that he had seen enough, his instincts telling him to keep moving. The corridor opened out yet again a few yards down the hallway. He staggered towards the larger room. It was only when he exited the corridor did he realise just how immense the new room was. He found himself in a huge chamber that contained what looked to be hundreds of the strange cocoons. The rail that ran above him, now free of the ceiling in the corridor, split into three separate rails that ran above three rows of grounded chrysalids. All across the massive, aircraft-hanger like space, were rows of cocoons, with each set varying in size from some as large as a filing cabinet, to others the size of houses. Dozens of rail systems were suspended above the cases, many with idle dangling mechanical actuators. Around the rows were terminals and monitors, all inactive and dark. The ceiling was so high up that it was barely visible, though this was due to the only lighting present being red emergency lights on the walls, the main lighting systems seemingly off.

Craig gazed at the super-structure around him, the scale of the space baffling him. But as advanced as the operation seemed, it seemed stalled and largely idle. The emergency lighting didn't help the image. Then, with a deep, echoing click, the red lights shut off, plunging the entire chamber into darkness. Craig recoiled with fright. Panic began to well up inside him until he looked to his left and saw that one small light was still active a hundred yards away. A lone red light shone above a steel door marked 'Exit'. He remained still for a moment. A thought crossed his mind, but it couldn't be right. Was he being given directions?

Not wanting to linger in the dark, he made his way over to the door. Reaching out, he prayed that it was not locked. When he pushed the handle down, the exit opened, much to his relief. On the other side was an extremely long, dimly lit corridor that stretched into the distance on his right. Closing the door behind him, he sighed and began to make his way along the pipe-lined hallway.

The walk never seemed to end. The linoleum floor showed signs of tread marks. The thought of traversing the corridor on a buggy of some kind was lovely, but he was content just to not be chased down the hallway. However, he did experience a crawling sensation since he had entered the facility that he had felt when he was out in the wilderness; the feeling of being watched.

Then ahead of him a light suddenly came to life above an exit to his left. Again, as if on cue to point him where to go. He wasted no time in opening the steel door and entering what was beyond. Whereas the last corridor was lined with a myriad of pipes and conduits, the new hallway was smaller and had a sterilised look to it. It smelled of disinfected cleanliness, the walls and ceiling an untarnished white.

It didn't take him long to find the first labs. Glass windows provided an insight into work spaces that contained a host of computers, data banks, laboratory apparatus and a majority of devices and equipment that Craig didn't recognise. At one point it would have been an impressive visage of scientific ingenuity. Now it was abandoned and dark, the emergency lights providing the only source of illumination. But it was not empty.

Through the window, Craig spotted the crumpled forms of people in lab-coats, laid still on the floor. There was no blood or gore staining the lab. One of the scientists lay on his side, facing the window. His eyes had rolled back and his face was blue. There were marks on his neck where the man had clawed at his own throat. Asphyxiation. They had all suffocated. By the looks of it, the oxygen had been sucked out of the hermetically sealed room. The automatic doors to the lab were shut, the wall mounted console beside it blank. He looked back to the grim scene through the window, fear welling up in his gut. On a desk by the window was an open folder of documents. Most of the words meant little to Craig at that stage, but one line caught his eye.

It read 'Lab 8 – Thrinacia Biologics Division: Neural Connectivity Progress Report'.

Thrinacia. The corpses in the lab confirmed his suspicions concerning the fate of the base. Any feeling of slight relief or hope that had felt in the minutes beforehand evaporated. Something had gone very wrong here, but what? And if indeed the rest of the staff at the base were dead, who was using the light to direct his attention. He cautiously continued to make his way through the silent corridors, not wanting to stay in one place for too long.

He came to a junction, with several corridors leading to a number of doors. The emergency lights above him flickered and died, all except of the ones lining one particular hallway. He looked around him until he spotted it; a small CCTV camera was fixed onto his position. For all that seemed offline in the base, certain low-power subsystems seemed to have energy diverted to them. For a moment he thought about talking to the camera, or otherwise trying to communicate with his unseen guide. But he felt that it would be pointless. They didn't have a method to communicate with him. As he turned to go where he was being directed, another question creeped into his mind; could he trust his mysterious director?

The hallway led to two doors at its end. As he approached them, he heard locks suddenly engage. He paused only for a moment before grabbing the handle of the smaller of the two. It wouldn't budge. Turning to the heavier looking door on the right, he sincerely hoped that he had not just been trapped. Like all the others, the consoles beside the entrances were dead. He had no clue where any of them led. Pushing the handle on the last door, it gave way, much to his relief.

Inside the dimly lit room we a variety of both lethal and non-lethal weapons, mounted on racks and placed in cases. He had found the armoury. He walked over to a wall of AR-15 style rifles. They were similar to the model he had been given the day before, only these featured an extra attachment under the main barrel; a short but broad weapon that looked somewhat like a flare gun. It was an M320 single shot grenade launcher. The 40mm explosive ammunition sat in an open case beside it. He took hold of one of the weapons. It felt good to hold the firearm. At least he had some kind of defence now.

He heard a digital beep and the snap of a fan turning on behind him. He turned to see that a small monitor that had been blank now displayed a single flashing line in the top left corner of the screen. Craig cautiously approached the screen. After a couple of seconds, words began to appear on the screen.

"You can read this, correct?" it read.

Craig remained motionless for moment, contemplating his next move. He finally had contact with someone. He ran his hands over the keyboard in front of the monitor.

"Yes. I am the last survivor of recon team sent to Thrinacia. I am in need of immediate EVAC, I have not located any survivors," he typed.

"Who do you think has been telling you where to go?" it asked.

So it was someone from within the facility.

"Where are you?" he responded.

"Safe. For now. I have control of some of the subsystems" it answered simply.

"Thrinacia has been compromised. Type-N 16 has caused malfunctions across the grid. Deadly malfunctions. There are no other survivors," it continued.

His mind thought back to the sealed lab filled with the dead scientists.

"What is Type-N 16?" he asked. There was a brief pause.

"A threat," it responded. "It needs to be removed in order to call for EVAC. You now have the tools to do so," it states.

The AR's were deadly weapons; the added grenade launcher added to their destructive capability massively. But he did not feel confident. Whatever Type-N 16 was, it had caused the deaths of everybody in the outpost. He guessed that even the beasts he had encountered so far couldn't have done that.

"I need more details," he typed, "What is it and what can it do?"

There was a longer pause, as if the person he was talking to was seriously considering their answer.

"Prototype specimen with advanced electro-magnetic capabilities. Spinosaurus implemented with Neurotenic strain during formation stage," it explained.

Craig couldn't believe what he saw. He had no clue what was meant by the term Neurotenic. But from what he did understand, what was essentially on the loose was a walking EMP with teeth. This wasn't just breeding prehistoric monsters; this was equipping them with adaptions that could cripple infrastructure. What the hell had they been thinking? He eventually typed in his next inquiry.

"How can I kill it?"

"Use the weapons provided. The key is to keep as much distance as possible from the specimen," it stated. He snorted.

"Yeah, not a problem," he replied.

"A route has been cleared for you. It will take you to the circuit breakers for the back-up power supply. Activate them, then proceed to Elevator 4. It will take you to rooftop platform 4. This will provide you with the best vantage point and will keep you out of range. If you follow my directions you will survive," it explained.

Craig knew what he had to do. If he could get some of the power back online and kill this thing, he could call for help. Perhaps this person will be ready to do so as soon as the grid was up and running.

"Understood. On my way," he typed, readying his new rifle.

"Stick to the route. And hurry, another electro-magnetic discharge will render my protection useless. Remember, keep your distance," it finished on.

Craig grabbed a couple of extra magazines for his gun, along with some extra grenades for the M320. Without further hesitation he left the armoury. He did not ponder the task ahead. He did not question how capable he would be of killing this thing. He had been at the mercy of the denizens of this place for too long; if killing Type-N 16 was the only way he would escape, he could not afford to have second thoughts.

…

He quickly made his way through the winding hallways of Thrinacia, the route highlighted by emergency lights that pierced the darkness. His body ached all over, and his brain was dogged by exhaustion. He had one more obstacle; his final circle of hell. He needed to be free of the chaos that had surrounded him since departing from Triphyle base. Craig pushed pack the pain and weariness as he set his sights on completing his final goal.

Before long he came to a heavy set of steel doors. As soon as he stood in front of them, he noticed the camera above eyeing him closely. With a deep click, the doors partially slid open. He squeezed through the gap, ensuring that his weapon did not get stuck. He now found himself in what looked to be a large warehouse. Large crates, cages and barrels were positioned around the space on flatbeds and loading vehicles. In the red glow of the emergency lights, he noticed that much of the visible floor-space was covered with a black liquid. He at first suspected it to be oil from the barrels. Then he noticed two other factors present.

The first was the smell that hit his nose. The coppery, metallic tang was unmistakable; blood, and a lot of it. The second thing he noticed was that the liquid was dotted with lumps and chunks. On closer inspection it was evident that they were pieces of flesh, bone and entrails. Craig's nerves froze. His senses went into overdrive. He listened for any sounds, however subtle, that echoed through the space. The only sound present was the steady drip of plasma somewhere in the dark. The warehouse had been turned into an abattoir. For a sickening moment, he wondered if his hidden benefactor had, in fact, led him to his death.

But nothing erupted from the darkness. No other living thing apart from Craig occupied the space. He looked at the organic devastation shrouded in shadow around him. The sooner he got to the vantage point and ended whatever did this, the better. The door was on the other side of the building. He set off towards it, cautious not to slip on the carnage that he waded through, the smell of gore and faecal matter threatening to overpower him.

He halted half-way through the red mire. A strange sound had broken into the silence. It sounded somewhat like something knocking on hollow wood, echoing through the chamber. Craig raised his rifle and whipped around, eyes scanning the darkness. The knocking started off slow, and was very muffled. It almost sounded like the groans of an old ship, but deeper and more exact. His gaze turned to the large, electronically operated doors at the far end of the warehouse. Whatever it was, it was outside the building. His nerves only calmed slightly before the sound picked up speed, the knocking-like noise increasing in volume and urgency until it blurred into a quick, single drone. The chorus suddenly climaxed with a deep boom, and Craig immediately felt the effect; his skin tingled and his hair stood up on edge. A quick and sharp pain pierced his head, causing him to wince quickly. When he opened his eyes a second later, he was greeted by darkness. The emergency lights had died. It wasn't the only thing to lose power.

The warehouse doors slowly rolled partly apart, locks disengaged, the sounds of the rain now entering the building. The pain in his head had subsided, but as soon as he saw the gap in the entrance, he bolted to the cover of the forklift a couple of feet to his left, a bullet of fear suddenly hitting him.

He slid in the blood, ducking behind the vehicle and pressing his back against the metal frame. He listened intensely. Only the storm could be heard. He shouldered his rifle, the thoughts of the blood around him and the beast that was supposedly responsible for it flooding his unsettled brain. All that followed, however, was stillness. It only added to his fear.

He didn't hear the thing in the doorway; he felt it. His skin tingled with the power that still rippled through the air. It slowly grew more intense. He didn't dare to breathe as something horrific and unseen stalked into the space on the other side of the idle vehicle. It was then that the spots started to appear; white blotches that started to flash in front of him. For a moment he thought that some sort of strobe effect was occurring on the black, blood-soaked floor in front of him. But when he shut his eyes as the migraine started, the spots continued to dance. It was an unnatural sensation; a static pain that sent bolts of light directly to his corneas.

He heard the clack of claws on wet concrete and metal. A slow, heavy breathing began to echo throughout the chamber. He gritted his teeth as the pain slowly became worse and the spots in his vision sparked more violently and grew bigger. Confusion and panic were starting to grip him. It threatened to overwhelm him. The thing must have been right on the other side of his hideout. His grenade was loaded and ready. All he needed to do was to get one good shot and that would be it, it would be reduced to a searing bloody mass of gore. One good shot. It was now or never, he needed to act before it found him. Summoning up all of the will power he could muster, he raised his rifle and whipped around the edge of the vehicle.

He couldn't explain what happened next. The warehouse was in total darkness. The only thing he registered as he rounded the forklift was lights, both the white spots he had been experiencing and some strange, blue orbs, like glow-worms. It was then that it all went to hell.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before. A sudden grating wave of agony pierced his mind; like a buzzsaw cutting into his skull. His vision suddenly erupted with a barrage of blinding white spots that totally obscured his vision. He doubled back and howled in excruciation at the unseen assault on his mind, his rifle hanging from its sling as he clutched his burning head. Through the utter confusion of the moment, his mind screamed at him just how much danger he was still in. He felt the breath of something blow against his contorted face; the smell was indescribable and unnatural. Trying to focus in the direction of the breath, he raised his rifle again and found the trigger to the launcher. Without a seconds hesitation he blindly pulled it.

The bang echoed through the chamber. The single second of silence that followed told him all he needed to know; he had missed. The explosion was deafening in the warehouse. Whatever was in front of him quickly diverted its attention away just for a second. The pain subsided slightly and his vision cleared just enough to get a quick bearing on what was happening. He saw a huge, dark shape in front of him as sparks and flames spouted from the explosion on the other end of the building. The sight of the shadowed nightmare was enough to convince Craig to turn and run. Whipping around, he let off a volley of blind shots behind him as he bolted in the general direction of the exit he had been heading towards. However, just as he set off in his sprint, the strobe lightening and the pain that accompanied it returned. Then came the impact.

A massive, swiping force hit his right side, sending him sailing into the air as a scream of unbridled terror escaped him. After a second of weightlessness, he collided with one of the cages, rolling over it and down onto the wet concrete. Pain exploded all over his body, especially in his right side. It nearly drowned out the agony that ravaged his head. Nearly.

His vision had once again been totally clouded by flashing spots of light. He reached out, moaning in sickening pain as he blindly crawled forward languidly. He felt the presence of his attacker closing in to his left. Like some kind of tortuous wraith, it made no noise as it closed the gap. Then his hand gripped something metal suspended off the ground. After a moment, he realised that it was the bottom of the chassis of one of the transport vehicles in the warehouse. Gripping with both of his hands, he pulled and kicked himself under the vehicle, reaching up to make sure he was covered. His hand closed around what felt like a drive shaft just above his head.

There was no time for relief. His agonised mind desperately tried to come up with some kind of escape as he gripped the underside of the machine. The thing inhaled to his right, before an unnatural growl echoed through the chamber. The vehicle suddenly lurched, sliding sideways as it was pushed by a large force. Craig tightened his grip on the underside, being dragged with the vehicle across the concrete until the creature stopped pushing.

In that moment, he had an idea. He dove one hand into his left pocket, and felt his hand close around one of the large cylinders he had taken from the armoury. As a warped roar of frustration echoed around him, he wedged the grenade in a slot by what could have been the driveshaft. He grabbed his gun and awkwardly brought it up to his chest, fumbling to find the latch to reload the launcher, all the while praying the thing that was blinding him didn't push the vehicle again. It hissed loudly, before the concrete an inch from his shoulder splattered in a small geyser of dust, as if a bullet had hit it. The barrel came open, and he pulled his last grenade from his pocket, loaded it and shut the barrel.

As the weapon clicked closed, a tremendous crash boomed above him, and he felt a wind rush above him before the sound of screeching metal echoed deafeningly to his left. The damn thing had swatted the vehicle over.

With a scream that echoed the agony and terror that he felt, he pushed up and propelled himself forward as something snapped down on where he had been a split second beforehand. He rolled to his left, aiming at where he roughly believed the vehicle had fallen and pulled the trigger. He hoped to God he was right.

The launcher popped, and a millisecond later a massive concussive wave threw Craig into the air, the tremendous boom deafening him momentarily. He rolled onto the concrete and slid to a stop, the pain on his body so immense it was almost numbing his sense of feeling totally. But his plan had worked.

A guttural roar of fright signalled the waning of the spots in his vision. His mind cleared slightly. He saw a fireball erupting near the opened warehouse doors that lit up the pitch-black warehouse. He saw the blazing transport, fire raining down, blood and finally a long set of jaws lined with pointed teeth. He scanned the scene within a second; spotting the exit he had tried to escape through. With a feral cry he pushed himself to his feet and barrelled towards the exit. He closed the distance in seconds. As he ran the last few feet to the steel door, the white spots began to return again. Slamming into the metal, he madly fumbled for the handle. His fist hand closed around it, and he pushed it down and swung the door open, staggering through and quickly pulling it shut as the buzzsaw pain that started to cut its way back into his brain signalled the oncoming presence of the monster. The clang of metal rang out as the door slammed shut, once again plunging Craig into darkness.

But he did not care. He staggered blindly down the corridor as the migraine-like attack on his vision grew less and less intense the further he got away from the hanger. Finally, when the pain had subsided, he doubled over onto his hands and knees, inhaling deeply as he tried to expel the last remnants of the terrible sensation from his head. After a few moments of laboured breathing, the last of the infernal blotches faded away, and his mind cleared. It was then that the fear, rage and hopelessness hit him all at once. He began to weep, sobs wracking his chest before he roared at the floor, his throat already raw.

"I didn't want any of this! I didn't ask for this shit!" he screamed.

He brought a fist down in a shot of pain onto the concrete before rolling onto his back, the tears flowing freely. He was tired, dehydrated, injured in several different places and all but spent. He didn't even know what was keeping him going.

For a few minutes more, he sobbed, the soldier he had once been now reduced to a shaken mess. He hadn't been trained for monsters. He had endured the deserts of the middle-east, and he had been content being nothing more than a security guard. This was not something that he had ever been prepared for, or ever could be.

He couldn't remotely begin to think about how he was going to kill the thing that had just attacked him. It was worse than anything he had faced so far. The swamp dwellers, the Pterosaurs, even the dinosaurs that had chased him over so much distance didn't inject the same kind of terror and helplessness into him the thing back in the warehouse did. He had lost his weapon, and the last of his will along with it.

For a while, he just lay there. The sobs subsided and his breathing steadied slowly. Through the anguish and dread that clouded his mind, a small bit of clarity presented itself to him. He knew why he kept going; the pure and primal need to survive. It kept him going when he had first been attacked. It spurred him on when the tribes' settlement was destroyed. It carried him up the slope and through that damned swamp, and it brought him to that point there and then. He realised just how much adversity he had barely overcome.

The minutes stretched on. He was not ready to die. He hadn't come so far to just let it happen. His soldiers resolve began to ebb back into him slightly. He needed a new plan.

He shakily got to his feet. How the hell was he supposed to fight this thing when he couldn't even see it when it got close? Now he knew why his benefactor had warned him to keep his distance.

He looked around him for any source of light. For a moment of pure dread he thought that the blinding spots were starting to return, until he realised what he was now seeing was a tiny, blinking light on a wall nearby. Hands outstretched to try and feel obstacles, he staggered over to the light. He felt around the LED, finding several rectangular pieces of plastic in a row on something big and blocky. The breakers.

After a moment of fumbling, he managed to switch one. After a moments pause, a low electronic hum sounded off somewhere within the wall in front of him. He quickly started switching them all, and to his relief, after a moment of darkness as conduits came to life, light pierced the darkness. They came on one by one, back-up power systems bringing lights that hadn't popped from the power surges back online. By the sounds of back-up generators engaging, it wasn't just lights being started up. The space he found himself in was a long service room, the walls brimming with conduit piping and power terminals. At one end of it was a service elevator which hummed to life. Elevator 4.

Craig thought back to the plan that had been laid out by his unknown guide. There was no point in going to the viewing platform without a weapon. He momentarily considered just hiding out somewhere like the room he was in. Find some food and water and wait for help.

Then he remembered that he was the help. He had been sent to this base to try and find survivors. His common sense told him that help would not come quick enough, not unless he could get a distress call to Triphyle. He needed to kill that monster.

He went to move over to the elevator, when he felt the pain in his right side flare up. Looking down, he saw that the already tattered protective overalls he had been wearing now bore a massive claw mark on his flank and were covered in blood. Most of it was not his. Luckily for him it had been a glancing blow; the Kevlar had taken most of the damage, leaving him with three raking flesh wounds that didn't go deep. But it hurt like hell. He clutched his side and walked over to the elevator. Beside it was a diagram of the floors it stopped at.

The observation platform was at the top. But that isn't what caught his eye. He saw that one of the stops was labelled as 'Loading control/ Crane operating room'. His benefactor had told him that he was somewhere safe and that he had access to certain subsystems. Loading control sounded like a safe bet.

"What the hell," he mumbled as he pressed the button that activated the lift, stepping through the opening metal doors.

A few moments later after they had closed, the doors opened to the control room. It was a decent sized space, with large windows at the front and the sides at the front of the room. And through the windows shone light. As he went to limp past the dark monitors and filing cabinets, he noticed something else; the room reeked of cooked meat. He soon found the source. A scorched body lay in front of a burnt out terminal by the window. By the looks of it, an electrical surge had caused the accident. No, accident was the wrong term. He looked down at the body, patches of skin burnt away to reveal muscle and bone. Had this been the man guiding him through the base? He noticed that there was no smoke, and the burns looked at least a day old. It couldn't be him. The location of his enigmatic guide remained a mystery.

Turning his attention to the view outside the window, he finally got a look at Thrinacia base from the outside. Floodlights stationed on the surrounding wall illuminated the compound. It was built more like a fortress rather than Triphyle. Large cages and containers littered the courtyard, and a selection of Jeeps, Guardians and heavy transports trucks were parked off neatly to the right hand side of the outpost, not far away from a massive loading crane. It was a powerful looking machine, even when it was folded up and idle. At the end of its broad telescoping arm was a large steel claw designed to lift massive cargo. To his left were large warehouses, and behind them were laboratory units. Leading up to some of the warehouses were rails implanted into the ground that had flatbed transports upon them. They were designed to make it easier to bring cargo into the buildings, however only one flatbed had a container on it. But two things particularly caught his eye. Much of the courtyard was littered with pieces of flesh, fabric and bones that were all that was left of the bodies of on-site staff. The remains stained much of the waterlogged ground a shade of red. And off further to his left one of the warehouses was slightly open, the flickering glow of fire emanating from inside of the structure.

He couldn't see the beast, but he knew that it was out there. The heavy, defensive gates to the outpost were closed shut. It wasn't going anywhere. And neither was he. A crawling feeling of fear wormed its way up his spine at the thought of facing the monster again. He knew that he couldn't fight it head on. He looked down at the mangled remains littering the complex. Rifles lay on the wet concrete near some of the bodies.

No, he needed a better plan than just to run down, grab a gun and hope for the best. He scanned the area for something else he could use. He locked onto the crane. As soon as the idea came to him however, he was reminded of the grim scene beside him. The terminal was blackened and ruined. There was a manipulation lever and a host of buttons. Of course. It was the controlling terminal for the massive loader.

However, just before he could dismiss the idea, he spotted something at the base of the immense emplaced telescopic arm, another terminal. He was not engineer, but he remembered that a much smaller version of the crane existed at Triphyle. He remembered seeing workmen operating it using a remote that was charged at the terminal for the apparatus.

And slowly, a plan formed in his head. He would have to go down into the court yard to get the remote; into the monsters domain. He looked to the abandoned weapons lay on the ground before looking to the parked vehicles. There had to be fuel for them somewhere. Then he spotted the stack of barrels, crates and cans just underneath the control room. He saw power cables and pipers running along sections of the wall. He had not been prepared to fight dinosaurs and monsters, but he knew the workings of a base. He turned to the desks and cabinets around him and began pulling out the drawers and rifling through the contents. He eventually found what he was looking for; a schematic of the power conduits in the base and what lead to what. Walking back to the window, he compared the diagram before him to the visible cables around the base. He made mental notes of his targets before he returned to rummaging through the office to find anything else useful.

One large cabinet was locked. On the body of the burnt crane operator hung a set of keys. Grabbing them without a second thought and trying different ones, he eventually found the right fit for the keyhole. Inside the cabinet were a variety of items, ranging from first aid to a fire axe. Most notably, there was a yellow box with a familiar symbol upon it. Flares.

Minutes later he had laid out his assorted items on a table. All were essential aspects of his plan and the contingencies he had formulated in his mind. One thing he had learned over the past hellish day and night was that if something can go wrong, it will. It was a long shot, but at that point a long shot was as good as it was going to get. He had no way to contact his guide, and there was no help coming. He either killed the creature that lurked in the dark outside, or it would kill him. He turned to the terminal that hadn't been fried. Eyeing the switches and dials, he found the one he was looking for. Pushing the slider up, the flatbed carrying the massive steel crate whirred to life and began to roll towards the warehouse before it. When it was close to the doors, he switched it to reverse, but just as it started to roll in the other direction he engaged the emergency brake system on the rails. The clamps locked around the wheels of the flatbed with a squeal of strained metal, and a warning buzzing sounded off in the control booth. It was a warning of the serious problem that would arise if the reverse function was not turned off before the brakes were disengaged.

He spotted the movement of shadows off to the right. It had come to investigate the source of the noise. But it did not reveal itself from the darkened areas. The shadow was lined with strange, pulsating blue patches. It moved behind the parking area for the vehicles.

Craig took a deep breath. The last thing he needed for his plan to work was something that he could not ensure; blind luck. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of what was coming. But he knew that this would be his only chance to survive the night. He gathered the items laid out on the desk and walked over to the door that lead out to a balcony that in turn sported a metal ladder, allowing access to the concrete below. If the thing spotted him before the preparations had been made, he was dead. For a brief moment, his brother's tale of the Hyenas in Africa came to mind, taunting him as he put his hand on the door handle. He quickly expelled the thought from his head. It was time to stop running from the Hyenas. It was time to face them. He opened the door.

…

It skulked through the darkness, ensuring that it stayed out of the beams of energy that had suddenly come alive in the compound. The frustration it had felt when the small creature escaped it in the sudden heat bloom had faded as soon as the surge of energy had begun to flow around it. It didn't see; it instead detected and felt the electrical wavelengths and thermal signatures of its environment. When it had first awoken, the activity around it astounded and frightened it. It had responded instinctually and released the energy stored in the muscles and vertebrae protrusions that lined its back. But once the confusing abundance of electrical currents receded partially, it had discovered that the warm bipeds proved to be a tasty source of food. It had hunted them all throughout the area. At first it drank the nutrients from their forms. After its hunger had been satiated, it simply tore them apart. They did, on occasion, hurt it with the things they carried. But its aura ensured that they rarely hit their mark. The last warm signature had provided its latest meal many hours prior. But even after it had discharged its defensive wave several times, something continued to flow through the digital pathways all throughout the structures around it. It was different. It felt alive, like the bipeds.

It was an intelligent creature. It was curious as to the nature of the intelligence that was present in the structures around it. It is for that reason that it remained in the area. Now energy once again flowed freely around it. Not as strongly as before, but never the less it piqued its curiosity.

It inhaled deeply and poked its snout under the heavy objects. But it did not detect any sign of the one biped that got away. It thoroughly checked each nook and cranny, having learned how efficient its prey was at hiding themselves away. It took its time, its confidence bolstered by the fact that it had fed on so many of them. One more would not present much of a problem.

The heat that emanated from the other side of the courtyard caused it to pause. The strength of the source grew stronger. The signature was emanating from a pool of heat that had engulfed one of the small cube shaped structures that had been stacked together. Sticking to the shadows, it made its way out from the rows of round legged objects and moved towards the source. It could detect no electrical signal close to the bloom. It was about to lose interest in the phenomenon, when suddenly several piercing bangs began echoing from the heat. It sensed the tiny objects flying by with incredible speed. They came from the weapons that some of the bipeds wielded. The projectiles hurt, and were deadly upon its soft skin. But these particular ones were flying in random directions, most of them being nowhere near it. But the bangs did mean food, and as long as the biped did not wield the weapon that caused explosions, it would be fine. Cautious to avoid the shards flying through the air periodically, it stalked towards the source of the cacophony.

…

He saw the dark shadow lined with patches of blue bioluminescence skulk towards the fire. He had guessed that it wouldn't be able to avoid investigating the sudden heat source. The bullets he had emptied out of some of the weapons he had found and placed in the fuel were just to be absolutely sure. It had been a nerve wrecking ordeal to cross the courtyard with the jerry can taken from the pile of fuel containers under the control room. The rain had masked his footsteps. He had also taken the caps off of a pair of stray fuel drums as he made his way back to his hiding spot.

Even as he spied the shadow in the distance, it started to hurt his head. He had to move now. He stepped out from behind the stack of crates, equipped only with the fuel canister, the fire axe, and some flares sticking out of his pocket, and moved as quickly and stealthily as he could along the mental line he had made, tipping the remaining contents of the jerry can out as he moved. He never took his eyes off of the shadow on the other side of the compound that now weaved amongst the containers on a wild goose chase. And he was the goose.

A few seconds later the last of the fuel dripped out of the can. He set the metal container down quietly before turning and moving towards the crane terminal. When he reached the control panel by the huge machine, he was relieved to find what he had hoped would be there; a remote for the machine, charging in a port beside the terminal. He pulled the device out and inspected it. There were only five buttons and a small joy stick on the yellow frame. It was simple and it had power. But just as he felt his plan was going to work, his hair stood on end, and the first white spots began to appear in his vision. As the cold feeling of utter dread enveloped him, he didn't wait a moment longer.

He grabbed a flare from his pocked and removed the lid, striking the end on the broad side of the axe as he broke into a run around the crane and towards the parked vehicles. As the magnesium ignited, he tossed the red stick behind him, just as he felt the looming presence of something horrific that now began to cloud his vision totally. The flare sailed through the air, sparking and dripping molten chemicals, before it entered a cloud of the fumes from the petrol beneath it.

The air and waterlogged ground suddenly erupted into flames. The blaze spread instantly along the path that Craig had poured, fire shooting up into the air and essentially creating a divide of flame. The creature recoiled with a warbling roar of surprise as the inferno licked the underside of its snout, searing its thin skin. The sudden large heat bloom disorientated its thermal senses, the moisture laden air of the night massively increasing in temperature.

Craig did a sweeping turn mid-stride when he was sure he was out of the burn zone and bolted as quickly as he could towards a stack of crates covered in a rubberized tarpaulin placed against the far wall of the compound. It was time for plan B. A hellish glow now illuminated the courtyard, and as he felt the searing heat at his back he saw the jagged shadow of something monstrous against the now lit-up concrete wall. He leapt up onto the covered stack as the thing roared its unnatural cry, slipping on the wet material. The effort was excruciating. He pulled himself up onto the tarpaulin before finding his feet and gazing at the line of thick cables running along the wall. Right there was the large fuse box, with each cable having a disconnector that allowed it to be removed from the box. The disconnector on each was only about as wide as a tennis ball, and required a key to open when there was a current going through the wire that was as thick as a python. He had his own key.

Craig raised the axe and quickly judged his swing, hoping that he had read the schematics in the office correctly. A couple of inches off either side and he would receive a lethal shock. His brain briefly brought up the image of the scorched cadaver in the control office. The wrong cable removed could destroy his contingencies. He swung the axe forward, hitting the disconnector. But the locking mechanism barely budged. He pulled back and, with a growl of frustration and terror, repeatedly swung at the metal, connecting every time. The flashing spots returned and quickly began to grow in intensity. He felt a huge presence closing in on him for behind. He rabidly pummelled the disconnector.

Then with a clang of metal, the mechanism broke and the cable came loose. He dropped the axe and wrapped his hands around the thick rubber, pulling it free of its fixtures. He could feel the crackling power emanating from the end of the wire. As his vision became totally blurred with the strobe-like effect of the beast, he threw the cable with as much force as he could behind him before grasping the plastic crates he was on to stop himself from falling. The cable slapped down onto the waterlogged ground, and the effect was instantaneous.

With the first loud crack, the smokescreen of spots blinding him disappeared. The beast collapsed like a puppet that just had its strings cut before spasming and thrashing on the ground now sparking with energy. Lights on the other end of Thrinacia flashed and sparked. The huge thing looked like it was having a fit, snapping wildly at thin air. Its skeletal limbs kicked and clawed wildly as immense amounts of power ravaged it. With a strangled and warbling cry, it finally fell still, twitching momentarily. The lights in the distance flashed once more before the crackling ceased and a final spout of sparks flew from the end of the cable. The static energy that filled the air waned as the electricity dispersed.

Craig panted, adrenaline still madly pumping through his body, as he stared at the beast he had just felled. It was his first clear look at Type-N 16. The creature was huge, and sported long narrow jaws filled with teeth that looked like narrow shards of glass. A pair of nostrils was positioned half way up its elongated snout, but it had no eyes. Its only facial features were two bony protrusions either side of its jaws and dark, moist skin. The blue patches along its body had dimmed and turned black, but he had seen them flash under its skin when it thrashed. No, he knew that was wrong. It had been flashes of electricity through the thing. As he stared closer, he saw that it did indeed have semi-translucent skin, the glow of the inferno nearby shining through parts of it, highlighting bones and organs within the grotesque body. It sported long, thin spines along its back, like a palisade of vertebra columns. It must have been at least fifty feet in length. It was the single most unnatural and nightmarish creature he had ever seen. And he had beaten it.

He stayed still as the realisation began to set in. He had done it, he had won! The first signs of a smile began to show on his chapped lips.

That was went he spotted the problem. At first he couldn't pinpoint it exactly, but there was movement besides the rainwater that now only drizzled onto the things corpse. He locked onto the side of its chest, just ahead of its thin and wickedly clawed arms. There was something moving under the skin, something rhythmic. The terrifying realisation hit him. It was a heartbeat.

A dark bolt shot from the things open mouth and embedded itself in the tarpaulin a foot to his left. Craig recoiled and struggled to his feet as the thin proboscis retracted languidly into the beasts' mouth, its pointed tip pulling free of the rubber. Panic returned to him in an instant as the thing began shift, the blue bioluminescent illumination returning to its patches. This wasn't over yet.

He wasted no time in moving to his final contingency and leaping off the crates and onto the concrete, rapidly skirting around the things dorsal spines and bolting towards the stack of barrels under the control room on the other side of the compound. The things immense tail suddenly swung and took his legs out from under him, sending both the axe and the crane remote sliding as he skidded on his agonised chest onto the concrete. He grimaced as he pushed himself up and staggered towards the remote, bending down to grab it as he resumed his ungainly sprint towards the barrels, leaving the axe as Type N-16 began to push itself back onto its clawed feet. Two open barrels greeted him ahead of the rest, and he pulled both over and resumed his run as the fuel poured out onto the wet concrete.

He closed the gap. 15 feet. 10 feet. 5 feet. He spotted the black shape nestled on one of the lower barrels. Just where had left it. He grabbed the loaded rifle he had pilfered from a corpse while setting up the distraction and began to climb the barrel stack. It took him only a couple of seconds to painfully pull himself to the top before turning to face the threat that had all but recovered from the shock.

As the beast turned its incredibly long body around to face him he fumbled with the crane remote, trying to get a look at the symbols on the buttons. He saw the two he wanted; an upwards pointing arrow and a sideways pointing arrow. He pressed both, and with a deep mechanical whirr the crane came to life. It raised itself slowly and began to turn towards his direction. But when he looked back to the monster, he knew it was too late. It had abandoned its stealthy demeanour as it took the first steps into what would become a rage-fuelled charge towards him. He abandoned his original plan.

He shoved the remote in his pocket as the crane went still, opting instead to raise his rifle. After milliseconds of aiming, he held the trigger down and fired a volley of lead at the approaching monstrosity, which was building up speed and momentum. Its size alone meant that it covered the distance in mere seconds. He realised he had moments before it hit him as it now barrelled across the concrete, ignoring the bullets that punctured its soft skin.

In one fluid movement, he dropped the rifle and whipped out a flare, removing the lid as the gun clanged onto the metal and striking the stick against the drum. He was out of time. The massive shadow was just about to pass the two barrels he had knocked over, leaving him milliseconds to react. Using all of the force his tired legs could summon, he leapt to the side and threw the flare forwards as pain exploded in his head. Through blurred vision he saw the jaws of the creature opening as it covered the remaining distance in a flash.

The mutated Spinosaurus snapped its jaws shut on only recently empty air as it collided full force with the wall of fuel drums, and the side of the control building. The impact was massive. Metal flattened as a torrent of petrol spewed in all directions, the concrete and metal of the structure fracturing as the creature slammed into its front. Craig hit the concrete surface just as the massive amount of fumes just released caught the flare as it descended.

The flash of heat singed his skin and burnt his hair, the force sending him sliding backwards before his momentum had even ceased. The control booth was consumed by a wall of flame that blossomed from the cascade of petrol. All sense was momentarily knocked from him as the atmosphere around him ignited. The explosion tore into the sky in a torrent of flame as if the control building had just been strafed with napalm bombs. For the longest moment of his life, Craig felt the unbridled insufferable heat and thought it would never end, his burning throat incapable of issuing a cry of terror.

Then the ceiling of flame began to dissipate and the air cleared just enough for Craig to inhale a gasp partially ionised air. He felt burnt all over. Opening his raw eyes, the first thing he noticed was that his leg was on fire. He quickly rolled and patted the portion of scorching fabric, his nerves only just realising where in his body hurt the most. He yelped and rasped as he flailed until the flame turned to cinders. Luckily for him the actual blast of fire had largely missed him. Barely. Then he looked to where the stack of barrels had been.

A massive wall of flame had replaced the entire control building. A pool of fire stretched out in front of it like a hellish Turkish bath. Even in the agony he felt all over, he thought for a brief moment that he had finally killed it. Then the fire launched forward, thrashing onto the wet ground.

He couldn't believe it; the thing was still alive.

"Oh are you fucking serious!" he rasped.

It rolled and thrashed as the flames covering its body began to dissipate, warped calls of excruciation echoing from it into pre-dawn night. He knew that its soft skin wouldn't provide much defence against the fire. He was sure that it would die soon from such injuries. But he wasn't going to let it take him with it.

He struggled to his feet. Reaching into the pocket of his scorched overalls, he pulled out the crane remote. He quickly scanned the hellish scene; the wailing and flailing of the beast as it rolled in the rainwater, the fire, the position of the crane, the flatbed carrying the container, and finally where the axe lay on the ground. In an exhausting turn of events, he was back to plan A.

He staggered towards the axe in the middle of the courtyard, the movement certainly not classifiable as a run. Bending down, he picked the weapon up and turned to the scorched thing that had rid itself of most of the fiery coating. It was a pathetic site. Black and clear liquid leaked out of thin, bubbled skin. A good chunk of its tail had fallen off totally, and many of its dorsal spines were broken or hanging off to its side. It seemed to take deep, raspy breaths as it stood on three scorched legs, its front right leg now nothing but a singed stump.

But as pitiful as Type-N16's state was, he looked just as worn and beaten and not even remotely as terrifying. His protective clothing was now just tattered and burnt rags that hung off of his red skin. He was covered in cuts and bruises. He couldn't stand up without shaking. Yet stand he did; manoeuvring the remote so he could use it with both raw hands while holding the axe. With considerable effort, he held down two of the buttons. The crane whirred and swung steadily over and past him, telescoping outwards before he let go of the buttons and moved to the joystick. As he worked on opening the crane's claw and finalising its position, the monster turned its mangled head to him and began to limp menacingly forwards.

This was it. He made sure that his fingers rested over the two necessary buttons before he turned his gaze to the oncoming monstrosity. The only hair left on him was his head, and he felt it stand up.

"Come on," he whispered through his terror and pain.

It stalked forwards, keeping low to the ground, its distorted and huge form silhouetted against the inferno behind it. The damaged muscles in its back started to build up energy. It had finally recharged its weapon. As it moved, its long skeletal jaws opened, and the thin, pointed harpoon that was its tongue slightly snaked out, readying for the killing strike.

"I'm right here, you cooked fucking bastard. Come on!" he rasped.

The spots in his vision returned, growing in intensity as the deformed thing moved closer. The rain grew heavier again as the electricity in the air built up. The knocking sound he had heard in the warehouse began to echo throughout the courtyard of Thrinacia, steadily increasing in volume and urgency. It was getting ready to release its EMP. A deep hiss escaped the things nightmarish mouth as his vision became more blurry and the agony of its presence pierced his skull. But he willed himself to stay still; to concentrate on its pace, its harpoon tongue, his feet pressing into the rails, and the flatbed brakes just a couple of feet behind him. It did nothing to comfort him as the pain became unbearable and his vision turned to a blinded kaleidoscope of flashing white. He felt its breath, which meant he was in its spearing tongues range. He wanted to move; to turn and run. Every single remaining nerve in his body screamed at him to do so as he remained still, blinded to the death approaching him. The sound of the electro-magnetic charge readying escalated into a deep drone as it readied to discharge. And through the pain and the sound of the oncoming release that would end his plan and doom him, Craig heard the clack of a claw on the end of the rail. He pressed his fingers down on the buttons.

He heard the whirr of the crane as it moved, and the hiss of the creature followed by the sound of something immense and powerful displacing rain and water with speed. He cried out.

A tremendous clang echoed over his scream, followed by the surprised warped cry of the beast. The spots disappeared, as did his wail as he gazed at the scene in front of him. The crane claw had closed and tightened around the monstrosity. It thrashed furiously and lunged at the metal jaws gripping its body as its remaining spinal protrusions snapped. The staccato that signalled the charging of its secret weapon slowed in tempo and faded. It was caught and its EMP had been disabled. But it was alive.

He had one more trick. Without further hesitation he dropped the remote and whipped around, raising the axe and lunging forward, locked onto his target. Then the pain exploded in his left thigh.

The harpoon pierced the skin and its barbs locked into the muscle tissue, anchoring it as the proboscis went taught. He howled as he fell forwards, the axe swinging down as he went; the blade striking the emergency release on the brakes holding the flatbed. As his chin smacked into the concrete he rolled to the left, but he was already being dragged backwards by the retracting tongue with extreme speed.

As he rolled onto his back, his vision was overrun with agonising distortion as he was rapidly pulled across the concrete. He registered the pain, a massive rushing of air to his side, and the flash of the nightmares teeth as he was pulled into its gaping maw before he was blinded totally. He didn't hear the strangled howl that escaped him.

The only thing he registered was the tremendous bang of colliding metal and a loud splat. Time seemed to stop. He was suddenly no longer being dragged, the pulley on his leg having gone slack. For a long moment, he thought that he was still blinded, until he realised that he had his screws screwed shut. As he opened them to make sure that he wasn't in fact dead, the rain started to ease off.

He was not greeted by the jaws of the mangled monstrosity. Instead, the proboscis that had imbedded itself in his leg led to a tiny gap between the crane claw and the crate on the flatbed. His foot was inches from the gap, out of which chunks of gore slowly slid and dark liquid oozed.

What remained of Type-N 16 lay within the claw of the crane, its head to its chest completely crushed by the container. He had barely avoided being minced by the wheels of the flatbed, and had come even closer to being caught in the crushing impact. Shaking from the effort, he reached down and grasped the harpoon in his leg and yanked the already damaged tongue. It tore and came free from the gap.

For a few long moments, his mind was blank. Every single part of his body ached. His muscles were worn, his ribs damaged, his skin raw and wounded, and his thigh speared. But then as realisation set in, relief flooded though him, momentarily drowning out the agony. He felt the rain turn to a drizzle, and pretty soon it ceased all together, leaving the water logged surfaces dripping with moisture. He was soaked and exhausted. But he had done it. He had beaten the monster. He had survived.

As he lay there, the storm slowly dissipated. Through the darkness, the first glow of dawn started to shine over the horizon. He sat up and took several moments to breathe. He felt that he deserved that, at least, after the hell he had been dragged through. The events of the past day and night played over in his head. The impossible things he had seen and the people who had died. He had a million questions, but he honestly did not care for the answers at that point. He wanted to find whoever had been contacting him within the base, if they were still alive, and to call help so he could finally be out of there. And after that, he wanted nothing more to do with Apollo Engineering and the islands. He did not care about what he would have to go through to make that happen. He would not speak of what happened ever again if needs be. He didn't even know if he would be able to bring himself to do so in the first place.

He tugged slightly at the harpoon in his leg, flinching as it tugged at his flesh. The first thing he needed was a way to treat some of his injuries at least. After a few moments rest, he looked to the pulverised remains of the monster in front of him.

"Yeah, fuck you too," Craig rasped before he started to push himself to his feet. With the state he was in, it was an effort that nearly sapped him of consciousness.

But he rose, and once he was standing straight, he looked to the morning light beginning to creep over the high wall surrounding the base. The only thing that felt good in him and within the carnage around him was seeing daylight again. After a moment, he turned and began to limp slowly towards one of the warehouses, the flames from the immense explosion now starting to die down. His eyes stayed fixed on the door, his mind so tired that he needed to focus on something to keep himself conscious. In his delirious state, he did not register the extremely faint footsteps coming up behind him.

The blow connected with his wounded right side, sending him sailing through the air and sliding onto the concrete, a strangled wheeze escaping his lips. He had felt bones break and pierce something inside of him. As he came to a skidding stop on his side, surprise and pain engulfing his mind. It was then that he knew that he was truly spent. The blow had been hard and sharp, cutting deep into his flank that now bled profusely. He couldn't turn to face his attacker. He couldn't do anything but twitch.

As his vision started to blur over, something grabbed him by his scalp, claws digging in through the flesh. But it was strange, he barely felt it. In fact he barely felt anything. His head was lifted and turned, his attacker bringing his leg over his body to stand above him.

No, not his. 'Its' leg. He finally laid his dazed eyes on his attacker. The shape was tall and humanoid. But it was, even to the most warped mind, very far from human. It was naked, but it had no defining sexual features. Its skin had a green tinge to it, with some patches even looking somewhat scaly. But all Craig really locked onto was its face. It had no eyes. The only facial features it had were two slit-like nostrils that flared open, and a mouth lined with sharp, jagged teeth. A clicking sound emanated from its horrific mouth, but he did not hear it; his ears registered no noise.

It truly was a nightmarish aberration, one of many that Craig had witnessed over the previous 24 hours. But it was the only one out of the menagerie of horrors that he had seen on the isle that didn't scare him. Emotions had now left him along with feeling, his battered body releasing endorphins as it began to shut down major organs. As the thing raised its other wicked claw to bring down in a sweeping arc, he didn't feel fear, pain or regret. No emotions were displayed in his blank stare. In fact the last thing that entered his mind could best be described as relief; a delirious and instinctual response to the fact that, finally, his exhausted and dying body was being given a chance to rest after such horrific ordeals.

The thing swiped with blinding speed, its powerful strike messily tearing Craig's head off of his neck in a spurt of gore.

It stood there for several long moments until the last faint twitches faded. In the grasp of its left hand was the man's head from the top jaw upwards. It dripped a fine drizzle of blood onto the wet concrete. At one point in time it may have recognised the face, in a previous iteration. But this new form, while savage and relentless like its previous incarnation, carried over virtually nothing from its previous life. To it, the desecrated man was just food. It pulled the head close and in one fluid movement bit into the man's cheek, tearing away a mouthful of flesh.

It would eat until it was fully satiated. Food had been the first thing it craved upon awakening. But when it was done, it would tend to the other instinctual urge; the urge to be with its mother.

Pleased as it dined upon its first kill, the creature let out a clicking cry that carried on the wind, joining the chorus of primal calls that echoed throughout the dawn-lit landscape.

…

Frustration nagged at its animal brain. If it hadn't been so exhausted, it would have been on the hunt for something to take its fury out on. While it had emerged victorious in its battle with the swamp dwellers, its main quarry had once again escaped, leaving no trace as to where it went. After resting and allowing its wounds to scab over, it had scoured the swamp tirelessly in the crater, with its search always leading it back to the centre. Nothing. It had to begrudgingly accept the fact that the little biped was gone. It had seethed in the muddy water for a while, before finally accepting the fact and making its way back down the ridge towards the forest. It was then that the distress calls of its immense pack had started to echo through the air.

It had frozen. The chorus of cries was filled with so much terror and pain. It couldn't be. They were unchallenged in their overwhelming might. Even the heavy-jawed behemoths and the immense sail-backs did not dare attack their numbers. Yet the sound was unmistakeable. It was the death-cries of its pack.

It had bolted down the rest of the ridge and accelerated into the forest, ignoring the fact that some of the scabby wounds that covered it had reopened. As it propelled its sinuous body through the forest, the roars and shrieks of pain and terror and crashing undergrowth had grown closer. But as it kept moving, the chorus became less powerful, until just a few individuals cried for help. And then they, by some unseen force, had also been silenced.

The overpowering stench of blood and fear filled its nostrils. It was exhausted, but it continued to accelerate towards whatever threat dared to attack its kin. They couldn't have been brought down, it was impossible. And then it arrived at the desecrated settlement of the bipeds.

The area reeked of death; death built up since the events of the previous night. The inferno had long fizzled out after carving a clearing of scorched earth. But the area of devastation before it was much larger than what had been caused by the fire. The destruction was unimaginable. Trees lay uprooted and splintered all around it. The earth had been churned up. Something had literally re-arranged a whole section of the forest; and the pack now decorated the new landscape. Blood soaked nearly every bit of plant matter and soil visible. All around it were disembodied chunks of what had once been its pack. Total confusion overwhelmed it. Pieces of entrails hung from the trees still standing, and faecal matter expelled in panic had mixed in with the gore. As it slowly stepped forward, trying to make sense of the devastation around it, its clawed feet sunk into the soil, which bubbled with blood that was being absorbed into the compost.

A feeling gripped the animal that it hadn't felt since being a juvenile. Fear; pure and primal. Its yellow eyes scanned the horrific scene for any sign of what could have done this to its kind. Mounds of earth and roots the size of the horned prey it sometimes hunted obscured its vision, along with the mess of trees that had been thrown about like kindling. The only movement came from the light breeze that whispered through the abattoir.

It looked around frantically. It needed a vantage point. It locked onto a hill just outside of the damage zone. Any kind of elevation would be useful. Anything to get away from the bloodbath comprised of its former family. It began to rapidly weave its way through the carnage, bolting towards the high ground. Then it suddenly dug its claws into the red mire and skidded to a halt.

A further moment of investigation revealed to the panicked dinosaur that its target was no hill. The massive dark shape within the trees shifted slightly, and that's when it saw them; two blood red eyes the size of its own feet glaring hungrily at it. The thing was crouched as low to the ground as it could go, yet still its back touched the canopy. The breeze that it had felt had actually been its breath.

It was frozen, utter terror the likes of which it had never felt before overwhelming it. It had been a dominant predator. It had not the largest, but it commanded the largest group, all of which were now minced into the land around it. It was no longer a predator; it was prey.

The thing erupted faster than anything of that size should have. Trees were uprooted and rolled with its lunge. As the black abyss opened before it, the once fearless predator stood paralysed as unbridled horror robbed it of any reaction, its primal mind blank as it dropped to the bottom of the food chain within a second. Its mind functioned no more when the resounding clack of teeth the size of the infernal biped it had been chasing echoed throughout the landscape, leaving only its legs and tail to flap uselessly onto the red ruin of foliage and gore with a few faint twitches.

The beast stood up to its incredible full height, swallowing the last of the mega-pack and basking in the rays of the dawn sunlight. But even as the pulverised, truck-sized prey slid down its gullet into its cavernous stomach, the monster felt no satisfaction. Its hunger was constant and eternally critical, the massive demands of its colossal body causing it to burn through unbelievable amounts of energy. It raised its head and inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the land, searching for its next meal. The smell of life was all around it, and it wasted no time in pinpointing where the strongest smell was emanating from and setting off in that direction, like a mountain of armoured flesh that ploughed through the forest. Its footsteps shook the earth when it did not wish to be quiet. Its huge mass caused trees to bow away from it and snap like twigs. And as it took in a deep breath of air that would have burst the lungs of three of the animals it had just slaughtered, it let the world around it know of its eternal starvation with a nightmarish roar that stripped the trees in front of it of leaves like a gust from a hurricane, and carried across the primeval landscape for miles, injecting terror and uncertainty into every living thing that heard it on the wind as it drowned out the dawn chorus of the isle.

…

The slaughter of the mega-pack at the jaws of Type-H 7 was of little interest to it. The asset had completed its task, and would soon die from the immense demands its unnatural body put on itself. In that aspect, everything had gone according to plan, the parameters for the scenario met exactly.

What had unfolded in Thrinacia was a different story. It had not suspected the outcome to be quiet so hard-won. Once it had established contact with the mercenary, it was fairly certain that the rest of the results would come easy. It had been a matter of simple trickery and direction, traits which it had just about mastered. The only plain lie it had told was when it had informed the man that the Neurotenic specimen had been responsible for the fatal malfunctions that had occurred in the labs and offices of the facility. However, it had misjudged how long it took Type-N 16 to recharge its pulse capabilities, an error that nearly jeopardised its only chance at removing the problem.

Fortunately, the mercenary proved to be resourceful. The asset that had once been so vital in liberating Thrinacia, before it proved to be a serious threat to the mainframe of Gateway 2, had been eliminated, after which only one potentially problematic loose end remained; the man who had killed it. A loose end that ended up being removed from the equation by something that constituted as an anomaly and a mistake.

The corrupted Promethean profile's new iteration had awakened prematurely on its own accord, breaking free into the incubation chambers of Gateway 2. Even before the thing revealed itself on the last few camera feeds that Thrinacia displayed, it had known that something was wrong with this specimen. It developed differently, and independently. Its biological signature was unlike anything it had seen before. It also found that it could not track it or even get a reading from its vitals. It was something totally out of its control. But, with the locking of certain doors and the unlocking of others throughout the base (those it still had control of), it proved to at least be useful.

But now, with the last of the people its creators sent to hinder its progress dead, it was left with an aberration that defied explanation. Its biology, its nature and its origins were all unknown factors to it. The only tiny piece of information that it had was that something in the darkest depths of the island had caused this ravenous specimen to develop the way it did. Something unfathomable.

But, even without a profile to work with anymore, observations of the creature yielded unique data the likes of which it had never come across before. And for that reason, it welcomed its introduction into the newly expanded habitat it had to work with.

It set about reengaging the systems of the replication process at Gateway 2. There was much work to be done; vast improvements and fixtures needed to be made to the environments its creators had let devolve into chaos. Environmental changes would have to be implemented to aid with the affinity system it had engaged. It needed to reintroduce the existing Promethean profiles into the environment along with creating new ones. The genetic strains needed to be studied more and implemented when certain populations needed culling, or when the time inevitably came to defend its work-space from outside forces. It knew much about the Type-H specimens, but Type-N and Type-T individuals had proven to be harder to analyse. It hadn't even gotten around to mapping out the code needed to replicate a specimen from the Magna designate. It also needed to complete the process of breaking into the mainframe in place on the other islands, of which AE-001 was the closest to giving way.

Yes, there was most certainly much that needed to be done. But it finally had the freedom to do it. It could finally gather information uninhibited on, for now at least, one island; an island which provided a wealth of specimens and profiles to study, from the Prometheans and the dinosaurs, to the enigmatic monster that was born of corrupted data.

It pondered momentarily, before slotting all of the footage and information it had gathered on the thing that feasted on the mercenaries flesh into a file marked "Spawn-0", before bringing up the file containing the only information it had pertaining to the being responsible for the things corrupted genetics, titled "Anomaly".

It erased the label it had originally placed on the file, before entering a new title. It was a lone cryptic word.

"Echidna"

The Mother of Monsters.

 **Close File**

 **This is a non-profit fanfic. The Isle and all of its properties and rights belong to the developers of this amazing game. This is an interpretation done using limited knowledge I have gathered on the known lore of the game. There are almost certainly misconceptions and mistakes as this is based off of what has only been released to this date.**


End file.
